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ARMENIA: 



A YEAR AT ERZEROOM, AND ON THE FRON- 
TIERS OF RUSSIA, TURKEY, AND 
PERSIA. 



BY THE HON. ROBERT CURZON, 

AUTHOR OF "VISITS TO THE MONASTERIES OF THE LEVANT." 




Ruined Armenian Church near Erzeroom. 



MAP AND WOODCUTS. 



NEW YORK: 

HARPER & BROTHERS, PUBLISHERS, 

82 BEEKMAN STREET. 

1854. 






Exclis 7} "O 
Western Ont. Univ. Library 



APR 3 1940 



: 



PREFACE, 



Almost from time immemorial a border warfare has 
been carried on between the Koordish tribes on the 
confines of Turkey and Persia, in the mountainous 
country beginning at Mount Ararat toward the north, 
and continuing southward to the low lands, where the 
Shat al Arab, the name of the mighty river formed by 
the junction of the Tigris and the Euphrates, pours 
those great volumes of water into the Persian (xulf. 
The consequence of the unsettled state of affairs in 
those wild districts was, that the roads were unsafe 
for travelers ; merchants were afraid to trust their mer- 
chandise to the conveyance even of well-armed cara- 
vans, for they were constantly pillaged by the Koords, 
headed in our days by the great chieftains Beder Khan 
Bey, Noor Ullah Bey, Khan Abdall, and Khan Mah- 
moud. The chains of mountains which occupy great 
part of the country in question are for months every 
year covered with snow, which even in the elevated 
plains lies at the depth of many yards ; the bands of 
robbers constantly on the watch for plunder of any 
kind prevented the mountain paths from being kept 
open, so that those who escaped from the long lances 
of the Koords perished in the avalanches and the snow- 
drifts by hundreds every year. 

To put a stop, or at least a check, to so lamentable 
a state of things, the governments of Turkey and Per- 
sia requested the assistance of England and Russia to 



y i PREFACE. 



draw up a treaty of peace, and to come to a distinct 
understanding as to where the line of border ran be- 
tween the two empires ; for hitherto the Koordish tribes 
of Turkey made it a virtue to plunder a Persian vil- 
lage, and the Persians, on their side, considered no ac- 
tion more meritorious, as well as profitable, than an 
inroad on the Turkish frontier, the forays on both 
sides being conducted on the same plan. The invad- 
ing party, always on horseback, and with a number 
of trained led horses, which could travel one hund- 
red miles without flagging, managed to arrive in the 
neighborhood of the devoted village one hou* before 
sunrise. The barking of the village curs was the first 
notice to the sleeping inhabitants that the enemy was 
literally at the door. The houses were fired in every 
direction ; the people awoke from sleep, and, trying in 
confusion to escape, were speared on their thresholds 
by their invaders ; the place was plundered of every 
thing worth taking ; and one hour after sunrise the in- 
vading bands were in full retreat, driving before them 
the flocks and herds of their victims, and the children 
and girls of the village bound on the led horses, to be 
sold or brought up as slaves ; the rest having, young 
and old, men and women, been killed without mercy, 
to prevent their giving the alarm : their victors fre- 
quently coming down upon them from a distance of 
one hundred to three hundred miles. 

In hopes of remedying these misfortunes, a confer- 
ence was appointed at Erzeroom, where a Turkish 
plenipotentiary, Noori ErTendi; a Persian plenipoten- 
tiary, Merza JafTer Khan ; a Russian commissioner, 
Colonel Dainese ; and an English commissioner, Col- 



PREFACE. y ji 



onel Williams, of the Royal Artillery, were to meet, 
each with a numerous suite, to discuss the position of 
the boundary, and to check the border incursions of 
the Koordish tribes, both by argument and by force of 
arms, the troops of both nations being ordered to assist 
the deliberations of the congress at Erzeroom by every 
endeavor on their part to keep the country in a tem- 
porary state of tranquillity. The plenipotentiaries on 
the part of Turkey and Persia, and the English and 
Russian commissioners, entered upon their arduous 
task at the beginning of the year 1842. Colonel Wil- 
liams, to whom the duties of the English commission 
had been intrusted, was too unwell to proceed to Erze- 
room, and I was appointed in his stead, being at that 
time private secretary to Sir Stratford Canning, her 
majesty's embassador at Constantinople. Colonel Wil- 
liams afterward recovered so much that he was able 
to set out, and we started together as joint commis- 
sioners, in company with Colonel (afterward General) 
Dainese, on the part of Russia, a gentleman of very 
considerable talents and attainments. The discus- 
sions between the two governments were protracted 
by every conceivable difficulty, which was thrown in 
the way of the commissioners principally by the Turks. 
At length, in June, 1847, a treaty was signed, in 
which the confines of the two empires were defined : 
these, however, being situated in places never survey- 
ed, and only known by traditional maps, which had 
copied the names of places one from another since the 
invention of engraving, it was considered advisable 
that the true situations of these places should be ver- 
ified in a scientific manner ; consequently, a new com- 



v iri PREFACE. 



mission was named in the year 1848, whose officers 
were instructed to define the actual position of the spots 
enumerated in the treaty ahove mentioned. These 
commissioners consisted of Dervish Pasha for Turkey, 
Merza Jaffer for Persia, Colonel Williams for England, 
and Colonel KtchirikofT for Russia. 

This party left Bagdad in 1848, surveyed the whole 
of that hitherto unexplored region, among the Koordish 
and original Christian tribes, which extends to the east 
of Mesopotamia, till they finished their difficult and 
dangerous task at Mount Ararat, on the 16th of Sep- 
tember, 1852. The results of this expedition are, I 
hope, to be presented to the public by the pen of Colonel 
Williams, and will, I trust, throw a new and interest- 
ing light upon the manners and customs of the wild 
mountaineers of those districts, and give much infor- 
mation relating to the Chaldeans, Maronites, Nestori- 
ans, and other Christian Churches converted in the 
earliest ages by the successors of the Apostles, of whom 
we know very little, no travelers hitherto having had 
the opportunities of investigating their actual condition 
and their religious tenets which have been afforded to 
Colonel Williams and the little army under his com- 
mand. 

Armenia, the cradle of the human family, inoffensive 
and worthless of itself, has for centuries, indeed from 
the beginning of time, been a bone of contention be- 
tween conflicting powers : scarcely has it been made 
acquainted with the blessings of tranquillity and peace, 
through the mediation of Great Britain, than again it 
is to become the theatre of war, again to be overrun 
with bands of armed men seeking each other's destruc- 



PREFACE. j x 



tion, in a climate which may afford them burial when 
dead, hut which is too barren and inhospitable to pro- 
vide them with the necessaries of life ; and this to sat- 
isfy the ambition of a distant potentate, by whose suc- 
cess they gain no advantage in this world or in the 
next. 

It is much to be deplored that the Emperor of Rus- 
sia, by his want of principle, has brought the Christian 
religion into disrepute ; for throughout the Levant the 
Christians have for years been waiting an opportunity 
to rise against the oppressors of their fortunes and their 
faith. The manner in which the Czar has put himself 
so flagrantly in the wrong will be a check to the prog- 
ress of Christianity. That the step he has now been 
taking has been the great object of his reign, as well 
as that of all his predecessors since the time of Peter 
the Grreat, will be illustrated in the following pages. 

The accession of a Christian emperor to the throne 
of Constantinople will be an event of greater conse- 
quence than is generally imagined ; for the Sultan of 
Roum is considered by all Mohammedans in India, Af- 
rica, and all parts of the world, to be the vicegerent of 
Grod upon earth, and the Caliph or successor of Moham- 
med ; his downfall, therefore, would shatter the whole 
fabric of the Mohammedan faith, for the Sultan is the 
pride and glory of Islam, and the pale Crescent of the 
East will wane and set when Kurie Eleison is chanted 
again under the ancient dome of St. Sofia. 

"What an unfortunate mistake has been made in not 
waiting for a real and just occasion for pressing for- 
ward the ranks of the Cross against the Crescent! 
Then who would not have joined a righteous cause ? 

A2 



PREFACE. 



who would not have given his wealth, his assistance, 
or his life, in the defense of his faith against the ene- 
mies of his religion ? 

I feel that, in laying this little book "before the pub- 
lic, I am committing a rash act, for I am perfectly 
aware that it has many imperfections. I was prevent- 
ed from visiting several important places in Armenia 
by an illness so severe, brought on by the unhealthy 
climate, that I have not been able to take an active 
part in life since that time. The following pages were 
written in a very few days, at a time when other oc- 
cupations prevented me from giving them that atten- 
tion which should always be afforded to a work that is 
intended for the perusal of the public. 

Nevertheless, I consider that, as the countries de- 
scribed are so little known, and as it is not improbable 
that events of great importance may take place within 
their boundaries, I should be open to greater blame in 
withholding any information, however humble, than in 
presenting to the reader a meagre account of those wild 
and sterile regions, whose climate and manners are so 
different from those which are generally described in 
the works of Oriental travelers. 

These sketches, slight as they are, may perhaps be 
found useful to the members of any expedition which 
the chances of war may occasion to be sent into those 
remote countries, by giving them beforehand some inti- 
mation of the preparations necessary to be made for 
their journey through a district where they would en- 
counter at every step difficulties which they might not 
have been led to expect in a latitude considerably to 
the south of the Bay of Naples. 



CONTENTS. 



CHAPTER I. 

The "Bad Black Sea." — Coal-field near the Bosporus. — Trebizond 
from the Sea. — Fish and Turkeys. — The Bazaars. — Coronas. — An- 
cient Tombs. — Church of St. Sofia. — Preservation of old Manners 
and Ceremonies. — Toilet of a Person of Distinction. — Russian Loss 
in 1828-9. — Ancient Prayer. — Varna. — Statistics of Wallachia. — 
Visit to Abdallah Pasha. — His outward Appearance. — His love of 
medical Experiments. — Trade of Trebizond Page 17 

CHAPTER II. 

Departure from Trebizond. — A rough Road. — Turkish Pack-horses. — 
Value of Tea. — The Pipe in the East. — Mountain Riding. — Instinct 
of the Horse. — A Caravan overwhelmed by an Avalanche. — Mount- 
ain of Hoshabounar. — A Ride down the Mountain. — Arrival at Erze- 
room 35 

CHAPTER III. 

The Consulate at Erzeroom. — Subterranean Dwellings. — Snow-blind- 
ness. — Effects of the severe Climate. — The City : its Population, 
Defenses, and Buildings. — Our House and Household. — Armenian 
Country-houses. — The Ox-stable , 45 

CHAPTER IY. 

Narrow Escape from Suffocation. — Death of Noori Effendi. — A good 
Shot. — History of Mirza Tekee. — Persian Ideas of the Principles of 
Government. — The " Blood-drinker." — Massacre atKerbela. — Sanc- 
tity of the Place. — History of Hossein. — Attack on Kerbela, and 
Defeat of the Persians. — Good Effects of Commissioners' Exer- 
tions 61 



x ij CONTENTS. 



CHAPTER V. 

The Boundary Question. — Koordish Chiefs. — Torture of Artin, an 
American Christian. — Improved State of Society in Turkey. — Ex- 
ecution of a Koord. — Power of Fatalism. — Gratitude of Artin' s 
Family , ...... Page 81 

CHAPTER VI. 

The Clock of Erzeroom. — A Pasha's Notions of Horology. — Pathology 
of Clocks. — The Tower and Dungeon. — Ingenious Mode of Torture. 
— The modern Prison 99 



CHAPTER YIL 

Spring in Erzeroom. — Coffee-house Diversions. — Koordish Exploits. 
— Summer Employment. — Preparation of Tezek. — Its Varieties and 
Uses 105 



CHAPTER VIII. 

The Prophet of Khoi. — rClimate. — Effects of great Elevation above 
the Sea. — The Genus Homo. — African Gold-diggings. — Sale of a 
Family. — Site of Paradise. — Tradition of Khosref Purveez. — Flow-, 
ers. — A Flea-antidote. — Origin of the Tulip. — A Party at the Cave 
of Ferhad, and its Results. — Translation from Hafiz 110 



CHAPTER IX. 

The Bear. — Ruins of a Genoese Castle. — Lynx. — Lemming. — Cara 
Guz. — Gerboa. — Wolves. — Wild Sheep. — A hunting Adventure. — 
Camels. — Peculiar Method of Feeding. — Degeneration of domestic 
Animals 125 



CHAPTER X. 

Birds. — Great Variety and vast Numbers of Birds. — Flocks of Geese. 
— Employment for the Sportsman. — The Captive Crane. — Wild 
and tame Geese. — The pious and profane Ancestors. — List of Birds 
found at Erzeroom 132 



CONTENTS. x jji 



CHAPTER XL 

Excursion to the Lake of Tortoom. — Romantic Bridge. — Gloomy 
Effect of the Lake. — Singular Boat. — " Evaporation" of a Pistol. — ■ 
Kiamili Pasha. — Extraordinary Marksman. — Alarming Illness of the 
Author. — An Earthquake. — Lives lost through intense Cold. — The 
Author recovers Page 145 

CHAPTER XII. 

Start for Trebizond. — Personal Appearance of the Author. — Mountain 
Pass. — Reception at Beyboort. — Misfortunes of Mustapha. — Pass of 
Zigana Dagh. — Arrival at Trebizond 155 

CHAPTER XIII. 

Former History of Trebizond. — Ravages of the Goths. — Their Siege 
and Capture of the City. — Dynasties of Courtenai and the Comneni. 
— The "Emperor" David. — Conquest of Trebizond by Mehemet 
II ! .166 



CHAPTER XIY. 

Impassable Character of the Country. — Dependence of Persia on the 
Czar. — Russian Aggrandizement. — Delays of the Western Powers. 
— Russian Acquisitions from Turkey and Persia. — Oppression of 
the Russian Government. — The Conscription. — Armenian Emigra- 
tion. — The Armenian Patriarch. — Latent Power of the Pope. — 
Anomalous Aspect of religious Questions 178 



CHAPTER XV. 

Ecclesiastical History. — Supposed Letter of Abgarus, King ofEdessa, 
to our Savior, and the Answer. — Promulgation and Establishment 
of Christianity. — Labors of Mesrob Maschdots. — Separation of the 
Armenian Church from that of Constantinople. — Hierarchy and re- 
ligious Establishments. — Superstition of the Lower Classes. — Sac- 
erdotal Vestments. — The Holy Books. — Romish Branch of the 
Church. — Labors of Mechitar. — His Establishment near Venice. — 
Diffusion of the Scriptures 194 



x ^ v CONTENTS. 



CHAPTER XVI. 

Modern division of Armenia. — Population. — Manners and Customs of 
the Christians. — Superiority of the Mohammedans Page 209 

CHAPTER XVII. 

Armenian Manuscripts. — Manuscripts at Etchmiazin. — Comparative 
Value of Manuscripts. — Uncial Writing. — Monastic Libraries. — Col- 
lections in Europe. — The St. Lazaro Library 213 

CHAPTER XVIII. 

General History of Armenia. — Former Sovereigns. — Tiridates I. re- 
ceives his Crown from Nero. — Conquest of the Country by the Per- 
sians and by the Arabs. — List of modern Kings. — Misfortunes of 
Leo V. : his Death at Paris 218 



LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. 



Map of Armenia To face title-page. 

Ruined Armenian Church near Erzeroom , In title-page. 

General View of Erzeroom To face page 45 

Erzeroom. View from the house of the British Commissioners. 

To face page 50 

Koordish Gallows In page 95 

Fundook • " 120 

Ruined Tower in the Castle of Tortoom To face page 145 

Boat on the Lake of Tortoom 149 

Quarantine Harbor, Trebizond • • I 65 



ARMENIA, 



CHAPTER I. 



The "Bad Black Sea." -Coal-field near the Bosporus. -Trebizond 
from the Sea.-Fish and Turkeys.-The Bazaars.-Coronas._An- 
cient Tombs.-Church of St. Sofia—Preservation of old Manners 
and Ceremonies.-Toilet of a Person of Distinction.-Russian Loss 
in 1828-9.-Ancient Prayer.-Varna.-Statistics of Wallachia.- 
Visit to Abdallah Pasha.-His outward Appearance.-His love ot 
medical Experiments.— Trade of Trebizond. 

Fena kara Degniz, « The Bad Black Sea." This 
is the character that stormy lake has acquired m the 
estimation of its neighbors at Constantinople. Of 1000 
Turkish vessels which skim over its waters every year, 
500 are said to be wrecked as a matter of course. 
The wind sometimes will blow from all the four quar- 
ters of heaven within two hours' time, agitating the 
waters like a boiling caldron. Dense fogs obscure the 
air during the winter, by the assistance of which the 
Turkish vessels continually mistake the entrance of a 
valley called the False Bogaz for the entrance of the 
Bosporus, and are wrecked there perpetually. I have 
seen dead bodies floating about in that part of the sea, 
where I first became acquainted with the fact that the 
corpse of a woman floats upon its back, while that of 
a man floats upon its face. In short, at Constantino- 
ple they say that every thing that is bad comes from 



1$ ARMENIA. 



the Black Sea : the plague, the Russians, the fogs, and 
the cold, all come from thence ; and though this time 
we had a fine calm passage, I was glad enough to ar- 
rive at the end of the voyage at Trebizond. Before 
landing, however, I must give a passing tribute to the 
beauty of the scenery on the south coast, that is, on 
the north coast of Asia Minor. Rocks and hills are its 
usual character near the shore, with higher mount- 
ains inland. Between the Bosporus and Heraclea are 
boundless fields of coal, which crops out on the side of 
the hills, so that no mining would be required to get 
the coal ; and besides this great facility in its produc- 
tion, the hills are of such an easy slope that a tram- 
road would convey the coal- wagons down to the ships 
on the sea-coast without any difficulty. No nation but 
the Turks would delay to make use of such a source 
of enormous wealth as this coal would naturally sup- 
ply, when it can be had with such remarkable ease so 
near to the great maritime city of Constantinople. It 
seems to be a peculiarity in human nature that those 
who are too stupid to undertake any useful work are 
frequently jealous of the interference of others who are 
more able and willing than themselves, as the old fa- 
ble of the dog in the manger exemplifies. I under- 
stand that more than one English company have been 
desirous of opening these immense mines of wealth, on 
the condition of paying a large sum or a good per cent- 
age to the Turkish government ; but they are jealous 
of a foreigner's undertaking that which they are in- 
capable of carrying out themselves. So English steam- 
ers bring English coal to Constantinople, which costs 
I don't know what by the time it arrives within a few 



TREBIZOND FROM THE SEA. ^9 

miles of a spot # which is as well furnished with the 
most useful, if not the most ornamental, of minerals, 
as Newcastle-upon-Tyne itself. 

Beyond Sinope, where the flat alluvial land stretch- 
es down to the sea-shore, there are forests of such tim- 
ber as we have no idea of in these northern regions. 
Here there are miles of trees so high, and large, and 
straight, that they look like minarets in flower. "Wild 
hoars, stags, and various kinds of game abound in these 
magnificent primeval woods, protected by the fevers 
and agues which arise from the dense jungle and un- 
healthy swamps inland, which prevent the sportsman 
from following the game during great part of the year. 
The inhabitants of all this part of Turkey, Circassia, 
&c, are good shots with the short, heavy rifle, which is 
their constant companion, and they sometimes kill a 
deer. As their religion protects the pigs, the wild 
boars roam unmolested in this, for them at least, " free 
and independent country." The stag resembles the 
red deer in every respect, only it is considerably small- 
er ; its venison is not particularly good. 

Trebizond presents an imposing appearance from the 
sea. It stands upon a rocky table-land, from which 
peculiarity in its situation it takes its name — rpane^a 
being a table in Greek, if we are to believe what Dr. 

used to tell us at school. There is no harbor, 

not even a bay, and a rolling sea comes in sometimes 
which looks, and I should think must be, awfully dan- 
gerous. I have seen the whole of the keel of the ships 

* Since this was written, the coal-field of Eragle has been opened 
under the direction of English engineers, and the coals are sent to Con- 
stantinople. 



20 



ARMENIA. 



at anchor, as they rolled over from one side to the oth- 
er. The view from the sea of the curious ancient 
town, the mountains in the background, and the great 
chain of the Circassian Mountains on the left, is mag- 
nificent in the extreme. The only thing that the 
Black Sea is good for, that I know of (and that, I 
think, may be said of some other seas), is fish. The 
kalkan balouk, shield-fish— a sort of turbot, with black 
prickles on his back — though not quite worth a voyage 
to Trebizond, is well worth the attention of the most 
experienced gastronome when he once gets there. The 
red mullet, also, is caught in great quantities ; but the 
oddest fish is the turkey. This animal is generally 
considered to be a bird, of the genus poultry, and so 
he is in all outward appearances ; but at Trebizond 
the turkeys live entirely upon a diet of sprats and oth- 
er little fish washed on shore by the waves, by which 
it comes to pass that their flesh tastes like very ex- 
ceedingly bad fish, and abominably nasty it is ; though, 
if reclaimed from these bad habits, and fed on corn 
and herbs, like other respectable birds, they become 
very good, and are worthy of being stuffed with chest- 
nuts and roasted, and of occupying the spot upon the 
dinner-table from whence the remains of the kalkan 
balouk have been removed. 

On landing, the beauty of the prospect ceases, for, 
like many Oriental towns, the streets are lanes be- 
tween blank walls, over which the branches of fig- 
trees, roofs of houses, and boughs of orange and lemon 
trees appear at intervals ; so that, riding along the 
blind alleys, you do not know whether there are houses 
or gardens on each side. 



BAZAARS. 



21 



The bazaars are a contrast, by their life and bustle, 
to the narrow lanes through which they are approach- 
ed. Here numbers of the real old-fashioned Turks 
are to be seen, with turbans as large as pumpkins, of 
all colors and forms, steadily smoking all manner of 
pipes. 

I do not know why Europeans persist in calling 
these places bazaars : charchi is the Turkish for what 
we call bazaar, or bezestein for an inclosed covered 
place containing various shops. The word bazaar 
means a market, which is altogether a different kind 
of thing. 

The bazaars of Trebizond contain a good deal of 
rubbish, both of the human and inanimate kind. 
Cheese, saddles, old, dangerous-looking arms, and va- 
rious peddlery and provisions, were all that was to be 
seen. Many ruined buildings of Byzantine architec- 
ture tottered by the sides of the more open spaces, 
some apparently very ancient, and well worth exam- 
ination. In the porches of two little antiquated Grreek 
churches I saw some frescoes of the twelfth century, 
apparently in excellent preservation ; one of portraits 
of Byzantine kings and princes, in their royal robes, 
caught my attention, but I had not time to do more 
than take a hasty look at it. The tomb of Solomon, 
the son of David, king of Greorgia or Immeretia, stand- 
ing in the court-yard of another Grreek church, under a 
sort of canopy of stone, is a very curious monument ; 
and in two churches there are ancient coronas, which 
seemed to be of silver gilt, eight or ten feet in diame- 
ter, most precious specimens of early metal- work, which 
I coveted and desired exceedingly. They were both 



22 ARMENIA. 



engraved with texts from Scripture, and saints and 
cherubim of the grimmest aspect, so old, and quaint, 
and ugly, that they may be said to be really painfully 
curious. While on this subject I may remark that I 
am not aware where the authority is to be found for 
introducing the quantities of coronas which are now 
hung up in modern antique churches in England. I 
never saw one in any Latin church, except at Aix-la- 
Chapelle ; there are, I presume, others, but they cer- 
tainly never were common nor usual any where in 
Europe. All those I know of are Greek, and belong 
to the Greek ceremonial rite. I have never met with 
an ancient Gothic corona, and should be glad to know 
from whence those lately introduced into our parish 
churches have been copied. 

On the other side of the town from the landing- 
place, a mile or so beyond the beautiful old walls of 
the Byzantine citadel, is a small grassy plain, with 
some fine single trees. This plain is situated on a 
terrace, with the open sea on the right hand, on a level 
of fifty or more feet below. The view from hence on 
all sides is lovely. The glorious blue sea — for it is not 
black here — on the right hand ; the walls and towers 
crumbling into ruin behind you, the hills to the left, at 
the foot of which, built on the level grass, are several 
ancient tombs, whether Mohammedan or Christian I 
do not know ; they are low round towers, with conical 
roofs, like old-fashioned pigeon-houses, but rich in col- 
or, with old brick, and stone, and marble. Parasitical 
plants, growing from rents and crevices occasioned by 
time, are left in peace by the Turks, who, after all, are 
the best conservators of antiquity in the world, for they 



ST. SOFIA. 23 

let things alone. There are no churchwardens yet in 
Turkey ; there are no tasty architects, with contempt- 
ible and gross ignorance of antiquity, architecture, and 
taste, to build ridiculous failures for a confiding min- 
istry in London, or a rich gentleman in the country, 
who does not pretend to know any thing about the 
matter, and falls into the error of believing that if he 
pays well he will be well served, and that a man who 
has been brought up to build buildings must know how 
to do it : and this knowledge is displayed in the pro- 
duction of the British Museum, the National Grallery, 
and other original edifices. 

The spleen aroused in writing these words is calmed 
by the recollection of the ruins of the fortified monas- 
tery, as it would appear to have been, Before my eyes 
at the further end of this charming open plain ; a By- 
zantine gate-house stands within a ditch surrounding a 
considerable space, in which some broken walls give 
evidence of a stately palace or monastery which once 
rose there ; but there still stands towering to a great 
height the almost perfect church of St. Sofia — the Holy 
Wisdom, not the saint of that name, but the deity to 
whom the great cathedral of St. Sofia is dedicated at 
Constantinople. This church is curious and interest- 
ing in the extreme ; it is most rich in many of the pe- 
culiarities of Byzantine architecture outside, and with- 
in there are very perfect remains of frescoes, in a style 
of art such as I have hardly seen equaled, never in any 
fresco paintings. The only ones equal to them are the 
illuminations in the one odd volume of the Wr\voXoyia 
in the Yatican Library, and some in my own. There 
are several half figures of emperors in brilliant colors, 



24 ARMENIA. 



in circular compartments, on the under sides of some 
arches, and numerous other paintings, of which the 
colors are so vivid that they resemble painted glass, 
particularly where they are broken, as the sharp out- 
lines of what is left betoken that they would be still as 
bright as jewelry where they have not been destroyed 
by the plaster, on which they are painted, giving way. 

The position, beauty, and antiquity of this Christian 
relic in a Mohammedan land, give a singular interest to 
the Church of St. Sofia at Trebizond. I longed to give 
this place a thorough examination. Perhaps a portrait 
of some old Comnenus would present itself to my ad- 
miring eyes. Many likenesses of by-gone emperors, 
Caesars, and princesses born in the purple, might be re- 
covered in all the splendor of their royal robes and al- 
most sacred crowns and diadems, to gladden the hearts 
of antiquarians enthusiastic in the cause, and who, like 
myself, would be ten times more delighted with the 
possession of a portrait, or an incomprehensible work 
of art of undoubted Byzantine origin, than with the 
offer of the hand, even of the illustrious Anna Comne- 
na herself. Her portrait, after the lapse of 600 years, 
would be most interesting ; but I do not envy the Caesar 
who obtained the honor of an alliance with that prin- 
cess of the caerulean hose. 

At this point, feeling myself entangled with the rem- 
iniscences of Byzantine history, I must branch off into 
a little episode relating to the singular preservation of 
ancient manners and ceremonies still in use, or, at least, 
remaining in the year 1830 in Wallachia and Moldavia. 
The usages and the etiquette of those courts, together 
with the names and the costumes of the great officers 



OLD CUSTOMS PRESERVED. 25 

of state, are all derived from those of the Christian 
court of Constantinople before the disastrous days of 
Mohammed the Second. Now that those fertile lands 
are overrun by the descendants of the Avars, and the 
fierce tribes of northern barbarians, who so often in the 
Middle Ages carried fire and sword, tallow and sheep- 
skins, almost to the walls of the city — ttjv poXiv • ecg 
Tfjv (3o?dv — from whence comes Stamboul, I may be, 
perhaps, excused if I put in a few lines relating to an- 
other country, but which, I think, are interesting dur- 
ing the present state of the affairs of the Turkish em- 
pire. 

In the year 1838 I left Constantinople on my way 
to Vienna. I went to Yarna, and from thence proceed- 
ed up the Danube in a miserable steamer, on board of 
which was a personage of high distinction belonging to 
a neighboring nation, whose manners and habits afford- 
ed me great amusement. He was courteous and gen- 
tlemanlike in a remarkable degree, but his domestic 
ways differed from those, of our own countrymen. He 
had a numerous suite of servants, three or four of whom 
seemed to be a sort of gentlemen ; these attended him 
every night when he went to bed, in the standing bed- 
place of the crazy steamer. First they wound up six 
or seven gold watches, and the great man took off his 
boots, his coat, and I don't know how many gold chains ; 
then each night he was invested by his attendants with 
a different fur pelisse, which looked valuable and fusty 
to my humble eyes. Each morning the same gentle- 
men spread out all the watches, took off the fur pelisse, 
and insinuated their lord into a fashionable and some- 
what tight coat, not the one worn yesterday ; but on 

B 



26 



ARMENIA. 



no occasion did I perceive any thing in the nature of 
an ablution, or any proof that such an article as a clean 
shirt formed a part of the great man's traveling ward- 
robe. 

Yarna is situated on a gentle slope a short distance 
from the shores of the Black Sea, and three or four 
miles to the south of a range of hills, between which 
and the town the unfortunate Russian army was en- 
camped during the war of the year 1829. I say un- 
fortunate, and all will agree with me, if they take into 
consideration a fact which I write on undoubted au- 
thority. When the Russians invaded Turkey in 1828, 
they lost 50,000 men by sickness alone, by want of the 
necessaries of life, and neglect in the commissariat de- 
partment : 50,000 Russians died on the plains of Tur- 
key, not one man of whom was killed in battle, for their 
advance was not resisted by the Turks. 

In the next year (1829) the Russians lost 60,000 men 
between the Pruth and the city of Adrianople. Some 
of these, however, were legitimately slain in battle. 
"When they arrived at Adrianople, the troops were in so 
wretched a condition from sickness and want of food 
that not 7000 men were able to bear arms : how many 
thousands of horses and mules perished in these two 
years is not known. The Turkish government was 
totally ignorant of this deplorable state of affairs at 
Adrianople till some time afterward, when the intelli- 
gence came too late. If the Turks had known what 
was going on, not one single Russian would have seen 
his native land again ; even as it was, out of 120,000 
men, not 6000 ever recrossed the Russian frontier alive. 
Since the days of Cain, the first murderer, among all 



ANCIENT PRAYER. 27 

nations, and among all religions, he who kills his fellow- 
creature without just cause is looked upon with horror 
and disgust, and is pursued by the avenging curse of 
God and man. What, then, shall be thought of that 
individual who, without reason, without the slightest 
show of justice, right, or justifiable pretense, from his 
own caprice, to satisfy his own feelings, and lust of 
pride, and arrogance, destroys for his amusement, in 
two years, more than 100,000 of his fellow-creatures ? 
Shall not their blood cry out for vengeance ? Had not 
each of these men a soul, immortal as their butcher's ? 
Had not many of them, many thousands of them per- 
haps, more faith, more trust in (rod, higher talents 
than their destroyer ? Better had it been for that man 
had he never been born ! 

The following prayer is translated from one at the 
end of an ancient Bulgarian or Russian manuscript, 
written in the year 1355 : " The Judge seated, and the 
apostle standing before him, and the trumpet sounding, 
and the fire burning, what wilt thou do, O my soul, 
when thou art carried to the judgment ? for then all 
thy evils will appear, and all thy secret sins will be 
made manifest. Therefore now, beforehand, endeavor 
to pray to Jesus Christ our Lord. Oh, do not thou re- 
ject me, but save me." 

The fortifications of Yarna are very flat and low, 
though they are said to be of great strength ; but, as the 
town is built of wood, I should think there would be 
little difficulty in setting it on fire by the assistance of 
a few shells or red-hot shot, from ships at sea or bat- 
teries on the land. From all such fortresses I am de- 
lighted to escape : the bastions, ditches, and ramparts 



28 ARMENIA. 

keep me in, though they are intended to keep others 
out. There is nothing picturesque in a modern strong- 
hold, as there are no battlements and towers, or any- 
thing pleasing to the eye ; only, whichever way you 
turn, you are sure to be stopped by a green ditch with 
a frog in it ; I therefore only remained long enough at 
Yarna to see that there was nothing to be seen. 

The principality of Wallachia contains 1,500,000 in- 
habitants liable to taxation, 800 nobles, and 15,000 
strangers, subjects of various powers. 

It is governed by a prince (gika), who reigns for life. 
The civil list amounts to — 

50,000 Austrian ducats yearly. 

All the officials are paid by the government. 

The revenues of the principality are derived from tribute, which 

amounts to 300,000 ducats yearly. 

The salt-works, which yield 150,000 " " 

Domains of the prince 30,000 " " 

The customs 70,000 " 

Total 550,000 " 

The expenses are, yearly : 

Ducats. 

Civil List of the prince 50,000 

The Ottoman Porte for tribute 30,000 

Salaries of officials 150,000 

Troops, 4000 men 100,000 

Ten quarantine stations on the Danube 20,000 

Hospitals 5,000 

Schools 12,000 

Post 30,000 

Repair of roads 8,000 

Total 405,000 

The capital of Wallachia is Bucharest, containing 
12,000 houses and 80,000 inhabitants, of whom 10,000 
are strangers. 



STATISTICS OF WALLACHIA. 29 

There is one metropolitan, who lives at Bucharest, 
and has a revenue of 10,000 ducats ; and three bish- 
ops, of Rimnik, Argessi, and Buzeo, who have 8000 
each. The salary of the first minister is 3600 ducats 
yearly. There are three ranks of nobles. The highest 
consists of sixty individuals, who have the right of elect- 
ing the prince ; the second numbers 300, and the third 
440. The prime minister is called the bano ; the com- 
mander-in-chief, spathar ; the minister of the interior, 
the great dvornic ; the minister of justice, the great 
logothete. The greatest family is that of Brancovano, 
the revenue of its chief being 12,000 ducats. The ti- 
tles of the great officers of state, and the principal peo- 
ple about the court of the Hospodar, are derived from 
the institutions of the Byzantine emperors. These no- 
bles are divided into three classes. The following is 
the order of their precedence : 

1st Class. 

1. Bano Marshal of the Palace. 

2. Dvornio Lord Chamberlain. 

3. Spathar Commander-in-Chief. 

4. Logothete Chief Secretary. 

5. Postemic Foreign Minister. 

6. Aga Inspector of Police. 

2d Class. 

1. Clochiar Commissary General. 

2. Paharme Cup-bearer. 

3d Class. 

1. Serdar Commander of 1000 men. 

2. Pitar Inspector of the Ovens. 

3. Consepist Registrar General. 

It is in the power of the government to raise an^ 
of these nobles a step after a service of three years. 



30 ARMENIA. 



Before the year 1827 these officers were paid by con- 
tributions raised on the subjects of the Prince, who 
were then exempted from any other taxes. The Bano 
had one hundred and twenty men, the Dvornic one 
hundred, the Paharme twenty-five, and so on ; from 
these they took as much as they could, one man aver- 
aging three ducats a year in value to his lord. 

The treaty of Adrianople contains an article insur- 
ing the independence of the interior administration of 
the country. On the 18th of May, 1838, an order was 
brought from Constantinople by Baron Rukman, in 
which it was stated that the General Assembly are to 
insert a clause in the Constitution, which obliges them 
to have leave of the Russians before any alteration 
whatever is made in the regulation of the interior. 
The army can not be increased, or any differences made 
in the administration of the quarantine, &c., without 
permission from Russia, which is in direct contradic- 
tion to the Treaty of Adrianople. Sentence of death 
is abolished by the Constitution, but great offenders are 
sent to the mines for life. 

Having accomplished our little tour to "Wallachia, 
we will recross the sea to Trebizond, and return to the 
inspection of that ancient city, so famous in the ro- 
mance of the Middle Ages. The Pasha and Governor, 
Abdallah Pasha, resides in the citadel, a large space of 
ruinous buildings, surrounded by romantic walls and 
towers, in the same style as those of Constantinople. 
As in duty bound, we proceeded in great state to pay 
a visit of ceremony to the viceroy. As our long train 
of horsemen wound through the narrow streets, and 
passed under the long dark tunnel of the Byzantine 



VISIT TO ABDALLAH PASHA. 3^ 

gateway, we must have looked quite in keeping with 
the picturesque appearance of that ancient fortress. 
From the gloomy gate we emerged into a large, ruin- 
ous court or space of no particular shape, but surround- 
ed by tumble-down houses, with wooden balconies fes- 
tooned with vines. I was struck with the absence of 
guards and soldiers, who are usually drawn up on these 
occasions in a wavy line, to do honor or to impose upon 
the awe-stricken feelings of the Elchi Bey. 

We passed through another court, if I remember 
right, till we found a number of servants and officials 
waiting our arrival at an open door, and, having dis- 
mounted, with the assistance of numerous supporters 
we scrambled up a large, dark, crazy wooden stair, at 
the top of which, on a curtain being drawn aside, we 
were ushered into a large, lofty room, where we be- 
held the Pasha seated on the divan, under a range of 
windows, at the upper end of the selamlik, or hall of 
reception. Then commenced the regular exercise of 
formal civilities, bows, and inquiries after each other's 
health, carried on in a thorough mechanical manner, 
neither party even pretending to look as if he meant 
any thing he said. We smoked pipes, and drank cof- 
fee, and made a little bow to the Pasha afterward, in 
the most orthodox way, till we were bored and tired, 
and wished it was time to come away ; but this sort 
of visit was a serious affair, and I don't know how long 
we sat there, with the crowd of kawasses and chibouk- 
gis staring at us steadily from the lower end of the 
hall. 

What the Pasha looked like, and what manner of 
man he was, it was not easy to make out, seeing that 



32 ARMENIA. 



to the outward eye he presented the appearance of a 
large green bundle, with a red fez at the top, for he was 
enveloped in a great furred cloak ; he seemed to have 
dark eyes, like every body else in this country, and a 
long nose and a black beard, whereof the confines or lim- 
its were not to be ascertained, as I could not readily 
distinguish what was beard and what was fur. Every 
now and then his excellency snuffled, as if he had got 
a cold, but I think it was only a trick ; however, when 
he lifted up* his voice to speak, the depth and hollow 
sound was very remarkable. I have heard several 
Turks speak in this way, which I believe they consid- 
er dignified, and imagine that it is done in imitation 
of Sultan Mahmoud, who, whether it was his natural 
voice or not, always spoke as if his voice came out of 
his stomach instead of his mouth. Abdallah Pasha 
paid us his compliments in this awful tone, and, till I 
got a little used to it, I wondered out of what particu- 
lar part of the heap of fur, cloth, &c, this thorough- 
bass proceeded. I found, to my great admiration, that 
the Pasha knew my name, and almost as much of my 
own history as I did myself; where he had gained his 
very important information I know not, but an interest 
so unusual in any thing relating to another person in- 
duced me to make inquiries about him, and I found he 
was not only a man of the highest dignity and wealth, 
possessing villages, square miles and acres innumera- 
ble, but he was a philosopher ; if not a writer, he was 
a reader of books, particularly works on medicine. 
This was his great hobby. In the way of government 
he seemed to be a most patriarchal sort of king : he 
had no army or soldiers whatever ; fifteen or sixteen 



ABDALLAH PASHA. 33 

kawasses were all the guards that he supported. He 
smoked the pipe of tranquillity on the carpet of pru- 
dence, and the pashalik of Trehizond slumbered on in 
the sun; the houses tumbled down occasionally, and 
people repaired them never ; the Secretary of State 
wrote to the Porte two or three times a year, to say 
that nothing particular had happened. The only thing 
I wondered at was how the tribute was exacted, for 
transmitted it must be regularly to Constantinople. 
Rayahs must be squeezed : they were created, like or- 
anges, for that purpose ; but, somehow or other, Abdal- 
lah Pasha seems to have carried on the process quiet- 
ly, and the multitudes under his rule dozed on from 
year to year. That was all very well for those at a 
distance, but his immediate attendants' suffered occa- 
sionally from the philosophical inquiries of their mas- 
ter. He thought of nothing but physic, and whenever 
he could catch a Piedmontese doctor he would buy 
any quantity of medicine from him, and talk learned- 
ly on medical subjects as long as the doctor could 
stand it. As nobody ever tells the truth in these 
parts, the Pasha never believed what the doctor told 
him, and usually satisfied his mind by experiments in 
corpore vili, many of which, when the accounts were 
related to me, made me cry with laughter. They 
were mostly too medical to be narrated in any unmed- 
ical assembly. 

Trebizond is not defensible by land or sea, nor could 
it be made so from the land side, as it is commanded 
by the sloping hills immediately behind it. From there 
being no bay or harbor of any kind, its approach is dan- 
gerous during the prevalence of north winds, which 

B2 



34 



ARMENIA. 



lash the waves against the rocks with fury. Inns are 
as yet unknown ; there are no khans that I know of, 
of any size or importance as far as architecture is con- 
cerned ; but large stables protect the pack-horses which 
carry the bales of goods imported from Constantinople 
for the Persian trade, the bulk of which has now passed 
out of the hands of the English into those of the Greek 
merchants. The steamer running from Constantino- 
ple is constantly laden with goods, and much more 
would be sent if additional steamers were ready to 
convey it. 

Our party was received under the hospitable roof 
of Mr. Stephens, the Vice-Consul, whose court-yard was 
encumbered with luggage of all sorts and kinds, over 
which katergis or muleteers continually wrangled in 
setting apart different articles in two heaps, each two 
heaps being reputed a sufficient load for one horse. 
This took some days to arrange, and our time was oc- 
cupied with preparations for the journey through the 
mountains. 



DEPARTURE FROM TREBIZOND. 35 



CHAPTER- II. 

Departure from Trebizond. — A rough Road. — Turkish Pack-horses. — 
Value of Tea. — The Pipe in the East. — Mountain Riding. — Instinct 
of the Horse. — A Caravan overwhelmed by an Avalanche. — Mount- 
ain of Hoshabounar. — A Ride down the Mountain. — Arrival at Erze- 
room. 

At last we were ready ; the Russian commissioner 
traveled with us, and we sallied out of the town in a 
straggling line up the hill, along the only road known 
in this part of the world. This wonderland miracle of 
art extends one mile, to the top of a little hill. It is 
said to have cost £ 19,000. It ascends the mountain 
side in defiance of all obstacles, and is more conven- 
ient for rolling down than climbing up, as it is nearly 
as steep as a ladder in some places. When you get to 
the top you are safe, for there is no more road as far 
as Tabriz. A glorious view rewards the traveler for 
his loss of breath in accomplishing the ascent. From 
hence the road is a track, wide enough for one loaded 
horse, passing through streams and mud, over rocks, 
mountains, and precipices, such as I should hardly 
have imagined a goat could travel upon ; certainly no 
sensible animal would ever try to do so, unless upon 
urgent business. Pleasure and amusement must be 
sought on broader ways ; here danger and difficulty oc- 
cur at every step ; nevertheless, the horses are so well 
used to climbing, and hopping, and floundering along, 



ARMENIA. 



that the obstacles are gradually overcome. In look- 
ing back occasionally, you wonder how in the world 
you ever got to the spot you are standing on. The 
sure-footedness of the horses was marvelous ; we often 
galloped for half an hour along the dry course of a 
mountain torrent, for these we considered our best 
places, over round stones as big as a man's head, with 
larger ones occasionally for a change ; but the riding- 
horses hardly ever fell. The baggage-horses, encum- 
bered with their loads, tumbled in all directions, but 
these unlucky animals were always kicked up again 
by the efforts of a posse of hard-fisted, hard-hearted 
muleteers, and were soon plodding on under the bur- 
dens which it seems it was their lot to bear for the re- 
mainder of their lives. If this should meet the eye of 
any London cab-horse — for what may we not expect 
in these days of march of intellect and national educa- 
tion? — let him thank his lucky star that he is not 
a Turkish pack-horse, made to carry something near- 
ly as heavy as a cab up and down rocks as inaccess- 
ible as those immortalized in the famous verse — 

" Commodore Rogers was a man 
Exceedingly brave — particular ; 
And he climb'd up very high rocks, 
Exceedingly high — perpendicular." 

Thus saith the poet ; what Commodore Hogers would 
have said if he had been of our party, I don't know. 
Those ladies and gentlemen who, leaning back in easy 
carriages, bowl along the great roads of the Simplon, 
may imagine what traveling there may have been over 
the Alps before the roads were made, while the nature 
of the ground is such, in two or three places, that, un- 



MULETEERS AND PACK-HORSES. 37 

less at an incredible expense in engineering, and a 
prodigious daily outlay to keep them clear of snow, no 
road ever could be made ; yet this is the only line of 
communication between Constantinople and Persia. 
Through these awful chasms and precipices all the 
merchandise is carried which passes between these 
two great nations. The quiet Manchester stuffs, ac- 
customed to the broad-wheel wagons of Europe, and 
the rail- ways and canals of England, must feel dread- 
fully jolted when they arrive at this portion of their 
journey. How the crockery bears it is easily under- 
stood by those who open the packages of this kind of 
ware at the end of the journey, when cups and sau- 
cers take the appearance of small geological specimens, 
though some do survive, notwithstanding the regular 
custom of the muleteers to set down their loads every 
evening by the summary process of untying with a 
jerk a certain cunning knot in the rope which holds 
the bales in their places on each side of the pack- 
horse : these immediately come down with a crash 
upon the ground, from whence they are rolled along 
and built up into a wall, on the lee side of which a fire 
is lit and the muleteers sleep when there is no khan 
to retire to for the night. 

On this journey I for the first time learned the true 
value of tea. One of the kawasses of the Russian 
commissioners had a curious little box, covered with 
cowskin, tied behind his saddle ; about twice a day he 
galloped off like mad, his arms and stirrups, &c, mak- 
ing a noise as he started like that of upsetting all the 
fire-irons in a room at home. In about half an hour 
we came up with him again, discovering his where- 



38 ARMENIA. 



abouts by seeing his panting horse led up and down by 
some small boy before a hovel, into which we immedi- 
ately dived. There we found the kawass kneeling by 
a blazing fire, with the cowskin box open on the ground 
beside him, from whence he presently produced glass 
tumblers of delicious caravan tea,* sweetened with 
sugar-candy, and a thin slice of lemon floating on the 
top of each cup. This is the real way to drink tea, 
only one can not always get caravan tea, and, when 
you can, it costs a guinea a pound, more or less ; but 
its refreshing, calming, and invigorating powers are 
truly remarkable. 

In former days, in many a long and weary march, I 
found a pipe of great service in quieting the tired and 
excited nerves ; having no love for smoking under or- 
dinary circumstances, these were the only occasions 
when a long chibouk did seem to be grateful and com- 
forting. That this is pretty universally acknowledged 
I gather from the habit of all the solemn old Turks in 
Egypt and hot climates during the fast of Ramadan, 
who invariably take a good whiff from their pipes the 
moment that sunset is announced by the firing of a gun 
in cities, or on the disappearance of its rays toward the 
west in the country. Supper does not appear to be 
looked forward to with the same impatience as the first 
puff from the chibouk. No pipe, however, possesses the 
agreeable qualities of a cup of hot good tea made in 
this way ; no other beverage or contrivance that I know 
of produces so soothing an effect, and that in so short a 

* Caravan tea is tea which is brought by caravans, over land, from 
China, through the great deserts of Tartary : it is much superior to the 
tea which comes by sea. 



MOUNTAIN RIDING. 39 

time. In a few minutes the glasses, and the little tea- 
pot, and two canisters for tea and sugar-candy, retired 
into the recesses of the cowskin box ; the poor horses, 
who had had no tea, were again mounted, and on we 
rode over the rocks and stones, one after the other, in a 
long line, the regular tramp, tramp, tramp, interrupted 
every now and then by the crash of one of our boxes 
against a rock, and the exclamations of the katergis as 
its bearer wallowed into a hole or tumbled over some 
horrible place, from whence it seemed impossible that 
he should ever be got up again. However, he always 
was, and at last we hardly took notice of one of these 
little accidents, and notwithstanding which we gener- 
ally got through the mountains at the rate of about 
thirty miles a day. 

On the second day from Trebizond we arrived at the 
snow; the hoods with which we had provided our- 
selves were pulled over our heads. I tied my bridle to 
the pommel of my saddle, put my hands in my pockets, 
and nevertheless galloped along — at least the horse did, 
and all the better for* my not holding the bridle. In 
mountain traveling this is perhaps the most necessary 
of all the whole craft and art of horsemanship, not to 
touch the bridle on any occasion, except when you want 
to stop the horse ; for, in difficult circumstances, a horse 
or mule goes much better if he is left to his own de- 
vices. In some dreadful places, I have seen a horse 
smell the ground, and then, resting on his haunches, 
put one foot forward as gently as if it was a ringer, 
cautiously to feel the way. They have a wonderful 
instinct of self-preservation, seeming quite aware of the 
perils of false steps, and the dangers by which they are 



40 ARMENIA. 



surrounded on the ledges of bleak mountains, and in 
passing bogs and torrents in the valleys below. 

At Beyboort we were received by the governor, a 
Bey, who gave us a famous good dinner or supper, 
whereof we all ate an incredible quantity, and almost 
as much more at breakfast next morning. At Grumush 
Hane, where there are silver mines, a good-natured old 
gentleman who was sitting by the roadside gave me 
the most delicious pear I ever tasted. This place is 
famous for its pears. Being situated in a deep valley, 
the climate is much better than most parts of the coun- 
try on this road. Here we put up in a good house, slept 
like tops, and waddled off next morning as before. I 
had an enormous pair of boots lined with sheepskin, 
which were the envy and admiration of the party : 
they were amazing snug certainly, and nearly came 
up to my middle. If they had been a little bit larger, 
I might have crept into one at night, which would 
have been a great convenience ; they were of the great- 
est service on horseback, but on foot I had much diffi- 
culty in getting along, and was sorry I had neglected 
to inquire how Jack the Griant-killer managed with his 
seven-league boots. Before arriving at Beyboort we 
passed the mountain of Zigana Dagh, by a place where 
a whole caravan accompanying the harem of the Pasha 
of Moush had been overwhelmed in an avalanche, over 
the icy blocks of which we made our way, the bodies 
of the unfortunate party and all the poor ladies lying 
buried far below. Beyond Grumush Hane rises the 
mountain of Hoshabounar, which is a part of the chain 
that bounds the great plain of Erzeroom. This was 
the worst part of the whole journey : we approached it 



MOUNTAIN RIDING. 4^ 

by interminable plains of snow, along which the track 
appeared like a narrow black line. These plains of 
snow, which look so even to the sight, are not always 
really so ; the hollows and inequalities being filled with 
the snow, you may fall into a hole and be smothered 
if you leave the path. This path is hardened by the 
passage of caravans, which tread down the snow into 
a track of ice just wide enough for a single file of 
horses ; but while you think you are on a plain, you 
are, in fact, riding on the top of a wall or ridge, from 
whence, if your horse should chance to slip, you do not 
know how deep you may sink down into the soft snow 
on either side. 

At the top of the mountain we met thirty horses 
which the Pasha of Erzeroom had sent for our use. 
We had above thirty of our own, so now there were 
sixty horses in our train. The Russian commissioner 
and I left all these behind, and rode on together with 
two or three guards, accompanied by the chief of the 
village where we were to sleep. At last we came to 
the brow of the hill — we could not see to the bottom 
from the snow that was falling — it was as steep as the 
roof of a house, and the road consisted of a series of 
holes, about six inches deep, and about eighteen inches 
apart, the track being about sixteen inches wide. To 
my surprise, the chief of the village, a man in long 
scarlet robes, immediately dashed at a gallop down this 
road, or ladder, as they call it ; the Russian commis- 
sioner followed him ; and I, thinking that it would not 
do for an Englishman to be beat by a Russian or a 
Turk, threw my bridle on my horse's neck and gallop- 
ed after them. Never did I see such a place to ride 



42 ARMENIA. 



in! Down and down we went, plunging, sliding, 
scrambling in and out of the deep holes, the snow fly- 
ing up like spray around us, to meet its brother snow 
that was falling from the sky. It was wonderful how 
the horses kept their feet ; they burst out into perspi- 
ration as if it had been summer. I was as hot as fire 
with the exertion. Still down we went, headlong as 
it seemed, till at last I found myself sliding and bound- 
ing on level ground, and, rushing over some horses 
which were standing in an open space, I discovered that 
I was in a village, and was presently helped off my 
panting horse by the gentleman in the red pelisse, who 
showed the way into a cow-stable, the usual place in 
which we put up at night. Thus ended the most ex- 
traordinary piece of horsemanship I ever joined in. It 
was not wonderful, perhaps, for the rider, but how the 
horses kept their feet, and how they had strength 
enough to undergo such a wonderful series of leaps 
and plunges, out of one hole into another, appeared 
quite astonishing to me. The next day we proceeded 
to Erzeroom, and at a village about two hours' distance 
we were met by all the authorities of the city on horse- 
back. Some horses with magnificent housings were 
sent by the Pasha for the principal personages, and we 
rode into the town in a sort of procession, accompanied 
by perhaps 200 well-mounted cavaliers caracoling and 
prancing in every direction. 



SUBTERRANEAN DWELLINGS. 45 



CHAPTER III. 

The Consulate at Erzeroom — Subterranean Dwellings.— Snow-blind- 
ness. _ Effects of the severe Climate. — The City: its Population, 
Defenses, and Buildings.— Our House and Household.— Armenian 
Country-houses. — The Ox-stable. 

"We were hospitably entertained at the British Con- 
sulate till the Pasha could get a house prepared for us 
to occupy during our stay ; but, as Mr. Pepys says, 
" Lord, to see I" what a place this is at Erzeroom ! I 
have never seen or heard of any thing the least like it. 
It is totally and entirely different from any thing I ever 
saw before. As the whole view, whichever way one 
looked, was wrapped in interminable snow, we had not 
at first any very distinct idea of the nature of the 
ground that there might be underneath ; the tops of 
the houses being flat, the snow-covered city did not re- 
semble any other town, but appeared more like a great 
rabbit-warren ; many of the houses being wholly or 
partly subterranean, the doors looked like burrows. In 
the neighborhood of the consulate (very comfortable 
within, from the excellent arrangements of Mr. Brant) 
there were several large heaps and mounds of earth, 
and it was difficult to the uninitiated to discriminate 
correctly as to which was a house and which was a 
heap of soil or stones. Streets, glass windows, green 
doors with brass knockers, areas, and chimney-pots, 
were things only known from the accounts of travel- 
ers from the distant regions where such things are used. 



46 ARMENIA. 



Yery few people were about, the bulk of the population 
hybernating at this time of the year in their strange 
holes and burrows. The bright colors of the Oriental 
dresses looked to my eye strangely out of place in the 
cold, dirty snow; scarlet robes, jackets embroidered 
with gold, brilliant green and white costumes, were as- 
sociated in my mind with a hot sun, a dry climate, and 
fine weather. A bright sky there was, with the sun 
shining away as if it was all right, but his rays gave 
no heat, and only put your eyes out with its glare upon 
the snow. This glare has an extraordinary effect, some- 
times bringing on a blindness called snow-blindness, 
and raising blisters on the face precisely like those 
which are produced by exposure to extreme heat. An- 
other inconvenience has an absurd effect : the breath, 
out of doors, congeals upon the mustaches and beard, 
and speedily produces icicles, which prevent the possi- 
bility of opening the mouth. My mustaches were con- 
verted each day into two sharp icicles, and if any thing 
came against them it hurt horribly ; and those who 
wore long beards were often obliged to commence the 
series of Turkish civilities in dumb show ; their faces 
being fixtures for the time, they were not able to speak 
till their beards thawed. A curious phenomenon might 
also be observed upon the door of one of the subterra- 
nean stables being opened, when, although the day was 
clear and fine without, the warm air within immedi- 
ately congealed into a little fall of snow ; this might be 
seen in great perfection every morning on the first open- 
ing of the outer door, when the house was warm from 
its having been shut up all night. 

Brzeroom is situated in an extensive elevated plain, 



DEFENSES OF ERZEROOM. 47 

about thirty miles long and about ten wide, lying be- 
tween 7000 and 8000 feet above the level of the sea. 
It is surrounded on all sides with the tops of lofty 
mountains, many of which are covered with eternal 
snow. The city is said to contain between 30,000 and 
40,000 inhabitants, but I do not myself think that it 
contains much more than 20,000 ; this I had no cor- 
rect means of ascertaining. The city is said to have 
been, and probably was, more populous before the dis- 
asters of the last Russian war. It stands on a small 
hill, or several hills, at the foot of a mountain with a 
double top, called Deve Dagh, the Camel Mountain. 
The original city is nearly a square, and is surrounded 
by a double wall with peculiarly-shaped towers, a sort 
of pentagon, about 20 towers on each side, except on 
the south side, where a great part of the walls is fallen 
down. "Within these walls, on an elevated mound, is 
the smaller square of the citadel, where there are some 
curious ancient buildings and a prison, which I must 
describe afterward ; a ditch, where it is not filled up 
with rubbish and neglect, surrounds the walls of the 
city ; and beyond this are the suburbs, where the great- 
er part of the population reside. Beyond this, an im- 
mense work was accomplished as a defense against the 
Russian invaders. This is an enormous fosse, so large, 
and deep, and wide, as to resemble a ravine in many 
places. It was some time before I was aware that 
this was an artificial work. As there are no ramparts, 
walls, or breastworks on the inner side of that im- 
mense excavation, it can have been of no more use 
than if it didT not exist, and did not, I believe, stop any 
of the Russians for five minutes. They probably 



48 ARMENIA. 



marched down one side and up the other, supposing it 
to be a pleasing natural valley, useful as a promenade 
in fine weather, and the prodigious labor employed on 
such a work must have been entirely thrown away. 

The palace of the Pasha, that of the Cadi and other 
functionaries, are within the walls of the town. The 
doorways are the only parts of the houses on which 
any architectural ornaments are displayed ; many of 
these are of carved stone, with inscriptions in Turkish 
beautifully cut above them. There are said to be sev- 
enteen baths, but none of them are particularly hand- 
some, though the principal apartment is covered with 
a dome, like those in finer towns. The mosques 
amount, it is said, to forty-five : I never saw half so 
many myself. Many of them are insignificant edifices. 
The principal one, or cathedral, as it may be called, is 
of great size, its flat, turf-covered roof supported by va- 
rious thick piers and pointed arches. The finest build- 
ings are several ancient tombs : these are circular tow- 
ers, from twenty to thirty feet in diameter, with con- 
ical stone roofs, beautifully built and ornamented. 
There must be twenty or thirty of these very singular 
edifices, whose dates I was unable to ascertain ; they 
probably vary from the twelfth to the sixteenth cen- 
tury, judging from a comparison of their ornamental 
work with Saracenic buildings in other parts of the 
world. 

The most beautiful buildings of Erzeroom are two 
ancient medresses or colleges, or perhaps they may be 
considered more as a kind of alms-houses, built for the 
accommodation of a certain number of Mollahs, whose 
duty it was to pray around the tomb of the founder, 



BUILDINGS OF ERZEROOM. 



49 



adjoining to which they are erected. One of these 
stands immediately to the left hand on entering the 
principal gateway of the town ; above its elaborately- 
sculptured door are two most beautiful minarets, 
known by the name of the iki chifteh. These are built 
of an exceedingly fine brick, and are fluted like Ionic 
columns, the edges of the flutings being composed of 
turquoise-blue bricks, which produces on the capitals 
or galleries, as well as on the shafts, the appearance of 
a bright azure pattern on a dark-colored ground. The 
roof of this very beautiful building has fallen in, but 
the delicacy of the arabesques, cut in many places in 
alto-relief in a very hard stone, would excite admira- 
tion in India, and equals the most famous works of 
Italy. The other medresse is in a still worse condi- 
tion, a great cannon-foundry having been erected in the 
middle of it. The whole building is broken, smoked, 
and injured ; still, what remains shows how fine it must 
have been. 

There are one or two Grreek churches and two Ar- 
menian churches here, both very small, dark, cramped 
places, with immensely thick walls and hewn-stone 
roofs. They appear to be of great antiquity, but can 
boast of no other merit. Adjoining the principal one, 
in which is a famous miraculous picture of St. George, 
they were building a large and handsome church, which 
is now completed, in the Basilica form, with an arched 
stone roof. Cut stone being very expensive, and in- 
deed, from the want of good masons, very difficult to 
procure, the priests bethought themselves of a happy 
expedient to secure square hewn stone for the corners, 
door- way, windows, &c, of the new cathedral. They 

C 



50 



ARMENIA. 



told their flock that, as the ancient tomb-stones were 
of no use to the departed, it would be a meritorious act 
in the living to bring them to assist in the erection of 
the church. They managed this so well, that every- 
one brought on his own back, or at his own expense, 
the tombstones of his ancestors, and those were grieved 
and offended who could not gain admission for the tomb- 
stones of their families to complete a window or sup- 
port a wall. The work advanced rapidly during the 
summer, and any large, flat slabs of stone were re- 
served for the covering of the roof. It promised to be, 
and I hear now is, a handsome church, strong and solid 
enough to resist the awful climate, and the snow which 
lies there for months every year. The Armenian in- 
scriptions and emblems on the stones have a singular 
effect ; but I think, under the circumstances, the priests 
were quite right to build up with the tombstones of the 
dead a house of prayer for those about to die. 

In course of time a house was ready for our recep- 
tion : though not so large as those of some of the great 
authorities, it was one of the largest class of houses in 
Erzeroom, and a description of its arrangements will 
convey an idea of what most of the others were. It 
was situated in a very good position on the top of a 
hill, close to the house of the Russian commissioner, 
and on the same side of the town as those of the En- 
glish and Russian consuls. From its small, doubly- 
glazed windows we looked, over a narrow valley cover- 
ed with houses, on the walls and tower of the citadel, 
which stood on the Iiill directly opposite. The walls 
and towers, and the principal gateway of the town, 
with its two graceful minarets, to the left hand, and a 



OUROWNHOUSE. 53 

distant prospect of the great plain and the River Eu- 
phrates, and the mountains over which we had travel- 
ed, to the right, completed our view, which was, per- 
haps, the hest enjoyed by any house in the place. Our 
house, like most of the others, was built with great so- 
lidity, of rough stone, with large blocks at the corners ; 
the roof was flat, and covered with green turf. The 
windows were small, like port-holes, but the door was 
a large arch, through which we rode into the gloomy, 
sepulchral-looking hall, out of which opened the stables 
on the right hand, the kitchen, and offices, and some 
other rooms on the left, while in front a dark staircase 
of square stones and heavy beams looked as if it had 
tumbled through the ceiling, and gave access to the 
upper floor. There was a little garden or yard under 
the windows, where we planted vegetables, and in one 
part of which several English dogs, two Persian grey- 
hounds, and an Armenian turnspit, walked about in the 
daytime. The railing between this and the garden 
part of the yard was a triumph of art, accomplished by 
a Turkish guard, who turned his sword into a plow- 
share when not wanted to look terrific. We had also 
nineteen lambs, who grazed on the top of the highest 
part of the house, where they were carried up every 
morning, except occasionally when there was such a 
wind that they would be in danger of being blown 
away. We had I know not how many sheep with 
large tails ; these took a walk every day with a shep- 
herd, who led out all the sheep belonging to the inhab- 
itants of that part of the town. Every house having a 
few, they are marked, and all come home every even- 
ing to their respective houses, and go out again the 



54 



ARMENIA. 



next morning, and eat what they can get upon the 
mountains. Our household contained, besides our- 
selves and servants, one white Persian cat, with a spot 
on his back, and his tail painted pink with hennah 
(this race, with long, silky hair falling to the ground as 
it walks along, comes from Yan) ; five pigeons, and one 
hen, the rest having fallen victims to the rapacity of 
mankind ; and a lemming, * who lived in a brass foot- 
tub and ate biscuits. This last beast was sadly fright- 
ened by a mouse which I put into his habitation one 
day, and which made use of his back to jump out, after 
receiving a severe bite in the tail. He generally slept 
all day, and took a small walk in the tub in the even- 
ing. 

All the building except the hall and stable had a 
garden on the roof, that part only being two stories 
histfi. The kitchen and some of the other rooms were 
lit by a skylight, the earth at the back of them being 
on a level with their ceilings. The walls of the upper 
floor were not exactly over those below, but were sup- 
ported by immense beams, some of which had given 
way, and the principal room leaned over to the left 
frightfully. Those rooms which are lit by windows 
have two rows of them one above the other, except the 
dining-room and ante-room, which had only one row, 
too high from the floor to look out of, but very conve- 
nient for looking into, from the upper garden and the 
terrace of the next house. The rooms had all white- 
washed walls, wooden flat ceilings curiously carved 

* Those who take an interest in natural history should read the ac- 
counts of the extraordinary migrations of the lemmings, which occur 
periodically in Norway, after a fixed number of years. 



ARMENIAN COUNTRY HOUSES. 55 

and painted. On the floors there was blue cloth in- 
stead of carpets, and divans of red cloth. A few chairs, 
and some lumbering deal tables, with covers on them, 
at which we wrote, concluded our list of furniture and 
" genuine effects." The great difficulty was the eat- 
ing and drinking part of the arrangements. Every 
thing except bread and meat came on horses from Con- 
stantinople, and about one third of the bottles brought 
from thence were usually broken. Glass, for the win- 
dows, was a curious and expensive luxury, oiled paper 
being generally used, with a little bit of real glass to 
peep out of in each, or sometimes only in one window. 
"Wood also was very dear, as there were no trees with- 
in a distance of thirty hours. The climate is not too 
cold for the growth of timber, I should think, for there 
were a few poplars in the yards near the houses, but 
the people are too improvident to plant trees, and, ex- 
cept some prodigiously large cabbages, horticulture is 
not much practiced near the town. 

The country houses of Armenia are constructed 
somewhat differently from those of the towns. "When 
a man wishes — I can not call it to build a house, or 
erect a house, or set up a house, as none of these terms 
are applicable — but when a house is to be construct- 
ed, the following is the way in which it is set about. 
A space of ground is marked out, perhaps nearly an 
English acre in extent; then the whole space is ex- 
cavated to the depth of about five feet : one part of the 
excavation is set apart for the great cow-stable; this 
may be fifty or one hundred feet long, and nearly as 
wide. Having got so far, some trees are the next re- 
quisite; these trees being cut down, the trunks are 



qQ ARMENIA. 



chopped into lengths of eight or nine feet, the general 
height of the rooms, and are placed in two or four 
rows, to be used as columns down the great stable ; the 
larger branches, without being squared or shaped, are 
laid across from pillar to pillar as beams ; the smaller 
branches are laid across these, the twigs on the top, 
till the entire trees are used up ; the twigs are some- 
times tied up in fagots, sometimes not : over this is 
spread some of the earth that was excavated from be- 
low ; this is well trodden down, then more earth is add- 
ed, and on the top of all is laid the turf which formed 
the surface of the soil before it was moved. Round 
the stable, in no particular order, smaller rooms are 
formed ; if they are large, their roofs are supported by 
columns like the stable. In a large house there are 
often two stables. The space of ground taken up by a 
rich man's house is prodigious, the turfed roof forming 
a small field. The lesser rooms in this subterranean 
habitation are divided from the stable and from each 
other by rough stone walls well filled up with clay or 
mud ; their ceilings are contrived by laying beams 
across each other, two along and two across, in the 
form of a low pyramid, so that the ceiling is a kind of 
low square dome : the smaller rooms form store-rooms 
and apartments for the women. Each room has a 
rough stone fire-place opposite the door ; and in the 
roof, generally over the door, there is one window about 
eighteen inches square, glazed with a piece of oiled pa- 
per. Outside, these windows look like large mole-hills, 
with a bit of plaster on one side surrounding the oiled 
paper, or glass, which transmits the light. Inside, the 
window is perceived at the end of a funnel, widening 



ARMENIAN COUNTRY HOUSES. 



57 



greatly toward the room, and contrived so as to throw 
the light to the centre of the apartment, opposite the 
fire-place, where a fire of tezek, or dried cow-dung and 
chopped straw, is constantly smouldering. Over the 
chimney-piece hangs an iron lamp of simple construc- 
tion, which, with the help of the fire, produces a dim 
light in the long nights of winter. There is a divan, 
usually covered with most beautiful Koordish carpets, 
which last forever, on each side of the fire-place ; and 
large wooden pegs, projecting from the walls, serve 
to hang up guns, pistols, cloaks, and any thing else. 
Some of these rooms are rather roughly pretty in ap- 
pearance ; the floors are covered with tekke, a thick 
gray felt, and, among smart people, Persian carpets are 
laid over the felt, their beautiful colors producing a 
rich and comfortable effect. About half way up the 
chimney is a wooden door or damper, which is opened 
and shut by means of a string ; and when it is very 
cold weather, and they want to be snug and fusty 
down below, this door is shut, and the room becomes 
as hot as an oven ; the chimney does not rise more 
than two feet above ground, and has a large flat stone 
on the top to keep the snow from falling in, as well 
as the lambs and children ; the smoke escapes by 
apertures on the sides just below the coping-stone. 
The chimneys look like toadstools from the outside, 
rising a little above the snow or the grass which grows 
upon the roof. These subterranean habitations are 
constructed, not on the side of a hill, but on the side 
of a gentle slope ; and all the earth excavated for the 
house is thrown back again upon the roof in such a 
manner that on three sides there is often no sign of 

C 2 



58 ARMENIA. 



any dwelling existing underneath. The entrance is 
on the lower side of the slope, and there the mound is 
often visible, as it is raised four or five feet above the 
level of the hill-side. There are no fences to keep 
people off the roof, which has no appearance different 
from the rest of the country. It is often only the dirt 
opposite the doors, the cattle, and people standing 
about, which gives information of a small village be- 
ing present, particularly during the eight months of 
snow, and ice, and intense cold, when no one stirs 
abroad except for matters of importance. When a 
house is ruined and deserted, these holes are some- 
times rather dangerous, as the horse you are riding 
may put his foot into an old chimney and break his 
leg, there being very frequently no appearance of a 
habitation below, while you are passing through the 
open, desolate country, of which the roof seems to be a 
part. There are stories, perhaps founded on fact, of 
hungry thieves lifting the flat stone off the top of the 
chimney, and fishing up the kettle in which the sup- 
per was stewing over the fire below with a hooked 
stick — a feat which would not be at all difficult if the 
cook was thinking of something else, as sometimes will 
happen even in the best-regulated families. 

The most curious and remarkable part of the house 
is the great ox-stable, which often holds some scores 
of cattle. Out of this stable they do not stir, frequent- 
ly, during the whole winter season, and it is the breath 
and heat of these animals which warm the house ; be- 
sides which, they manufacture all the fuel for the es- 
tablishment : they are fed upon straw, bruised to small 
bits by the sledge which is driven round the threshing- 



ARMENIAN COUNTRY HOUSES. 59 



floor to separate the corn from the husk after harvest 
time. In one corner of this huge, dim stable, near the 
entrance door, a wooden platform is raised three feet 
from the ground ; two sides of it are bounded by the 
stone wall of the house, in one of which, opposite the 
door, is the fire-place ; the other two sides of the square 
platform have open wooden rails to keep off the cows. 
This original contrivance is the salemlik, or reception- 
room, where the master sits, and where he entertains his 
guests, who, as they stumble into the obscure den from 
the glare of the sun shining on the snow outside, are 
received with a yell by all the dogs, who live under the 
platform. This place is fitted up with divans and car- 
pets ; arms and saddles hang against the walls ; the 
horses of the chief are tethered nearest to the rails, the 
donkeys and cows further off. Among the horses there 
is always an immense fat tame sheep ; this is a uni- 
versal custom in every stable in Turkey, under or above 
ground. Among some of the Koordish tribes, a young 
wild boar is kept in the stable with the horses- — a re- 
markable custom among Mohammedans, who consider 
the whole race of swine as unclean beasts ; this is the 
only case in which they are tolerated. A small flock 
of other sheep are sometimes scampering about, or kept 
from doing so, among the cows ; chickens peck in the 
litter, and several grave cats have their allotted places 
on the divans of the chief, his wife, and others of his 
family. A vacant, that is, cowless space, is left be- 
tween the steps leading up to the platform and the en- 
trance door of the house ; this part answers to the en- 
trance hall, as man and beast pass through it on com- 
ing in or going out, immediately before the eyes of the 



60 ARMENIA. 



master of the house. From hence a sloping passage, 
about six feet wide, leads to the open air ; it has an 
outer door at the upper end, and an inner door below : 
this passage may be from ten to twenty feet long. The 
outer door is a common strong wooden one, but the in- 
ner doors all over the house are as singular as the rest 
of the arrangements. The house-door is of the usual 
size for the cows and horses to pass through, the others 
are not more than five feet high ; they are constructed 
in the following manner : the bare wooden valve is 
first covered with ketche or felt, and on the inside the 
skin of a sheep, with its legs and arms on, just in the 
shape in which it came off the animal when it was 
skinned, being dyed red, is nailed over the felt. On 
the other side of the door, down the middle, is a long 
square pipe or box, in which hangs a heavy log of wood, 
attached to a cord fixed to the upper part of the door- 
case, which keeps the door shut, as it swings to again 
after it has been opened, and keeps out the drafts, and 
keeps in the warm air generated by cows, fires, and 
lamps, so that the atmosphere is always temperate 
within, while the cold is such without that men are 
frozen to death if they stand still even for a short, time 
in the rigorous climate of an Armenian winter. 



NARROW ESCAPE. g£ 



CHAPTER IY. 

Narrow Escape from Suffocation. — Death of Noori EfFendi. — A good 
Shot. — History of Mirza Tekee. — Persian Ideas of the Principles of 
Government. — The " Blood-drinker." — Massacre at Kerbela. — Sanc- 
tity of the Place. — History of Hossein. — Attack on Kerbela, and De- 
feat of the Persians. — Good Effects of Commissioners' Exertions. 

The first aspect of affairs at Erzeroom was not very- 
satisfactory in any way. The cold and dismal weath- 
er was enough to prevent all enjoyment out of doors, 
and in-doors we had little cause of rejoicing. On first 
taking possession of our house, my companions had the 
narrowest possible escape of death from suffocation. 
The grooms in the stable below the drawing-room had 
lit an immense fire of charcoal, not for any particular 
object beyond that common to all servants of all coun- 
tries, that of wasting their master's goods, which they 
had not to pay for themselves. The fumes from the 
charcoal penetrated the ceiling, when, most fortunately, 
the Russian commissioner came in, and, finding his 
two English friends in a half-stupefied state, helped 
them out of the room on to the terrace, where they 
both fell down fainting on the snow, and were only re- 
covered after some time and difficulty. If the Russian 
commissioner had not arrived so opportunely, they 
would soon have perished. I did not participate in this 
risk, because I was laid up at the Consulate with an 
attack of fever, which effectually prevented my moving 
to my own house. 



Q2 ARMENIA. 



Another misfortune occurred almost at the same pe- 
riod. Noori EfYendi, the Turkish plenipotentiary, died 
suddenly of apoplexy in his bath ; he had heen embas- 
sador in London and at Yienna. All prospect of get- 
ting on with our affairs was put off by this unfortunate 
circumstance. Subsequently, Enveri Effendi, formerly 
secretary to Noori, was appointed in his place, but he 
did not arrive for some time after the death of his for- 
mer chief. 

Mirza JafTer, an old acquaintance of mine when he 
was embassador from Persia to the Porte, was too un- 
well to leave Tabriz, and Mirza Tekee was appointed 
Persian plenipotentiary instead. On his arrival within 
sight of Erzeroom from Persia, all the great people, ex- 
cept the Pasha and the commissioners, went out on 
horseback to meet him, and accompany him on his en- 
try into the town. There was a great concourse and 
a prodigious firing of guns at full gallop, which, as the 
guns are generally loaded with ball cartridge, bought 
ready made in the bazaar, though intended as an honor, 
is a somewhat dangerous display. Unable to resist so 
picturesque a sight, I had ridden out on the Persian 
road, though I did not join the escort, and, having re- 
turned, I was walking up and down on the roof of the 
house, watching the crowds passing in the valley below, 
and looking at the great guns of the citadel, which the 
soldiers were firing as a salute. They fired very well, 
in very good time, but I observed several petty officers 
and a number of men busily employed at one gun, the 
last to the left hand near the corner of the battery. 
At length this gun was loaded. A prodigious deal of 
peeping and pointing took place out of the embrasure, 



MIRZA TEKEE. 53 



and, just as I was turning in my walk, bang went the 
cannon, and I was covered with dust from something 
which struck the ground in the yard in a line below 
my feet. On looking down to see what this could be, 
I saw a ball stuck in the earth : the soldiers had all 
disappeared from the ramparts of the citadel, and I 
found they had been taking a shot at the British com- 
missioner. A very good shot it was too, exactly in the 
line, but the ball, not being heavy enough, had fallen a 
little short, so I was missed. They had manufactured 
a ball with a large stone, wound round with rope to 
make it fit the gun, to shoot at the Frank, and that 
was the occasion of all the peeping and crowding of 
the men round the gun which I had observed. 

As Mirza Tekee is now no more, and'he was beyond 
all comparison the most interesting of those assembled 
at the congress of Erzeroom, I will give a short account 
of his history. Mirza Tekee was the son of the cook 
of Bahman Meerza, brother of Mohammed Shah, and 
governor of the province of Tabriz. The cook's little 
boy was brought up with the children of his master and 
educated with them ; being a clever boy, as soon as he 
was old enough he was put into the office of accounts, 
under the commander-in-chief, the famous Emir Ni- 
zam, who was employed in drilling the Persian army 
in the European style. Tekee became Vizir ul Nizam, 
or adjutant general, in course of time, under the old 
Emir Nizam, and also amassed great wealth; and as 
the Shah did not like the idea of paying the expenses 
of his plenipotentiary-—" base is the slave that pays"' — 
he sent Mirza Tekee to Erzeroom with many nattering 
speeches and promises, none of which he intended to 



64 



ARMENIA. 



fulfill. The cunning old prime minister, Hadji Meerza 
Agassi, who was sedulously employed in feathering his 
own nest, was jealous of Mirza Tekee, and very glad to 
get him safe out of the way. The Turks and Persians, 
as every body knows, hate each other religiously, which 
seems always to be the worst sort of hatred. The 
Soonis and the Shiahs are, as it were, Protestants and 
Papists in the Mohammedan faith ; and if these two 
countries are ever reconciled for a time, the smoulder- 
ing flame is sure to break out again at the first con- 
venient opportunity, and it will do so to the end of time. 
In 1845, the Turks, who disliked Mirza Tekee with 
more than common aversion, from his dignified bear- 
ing and stately manners, gave out various accusations 
against him and some members of his household. A 
fanatical mob of many thousand indignant Soonis sur- 
rounded all that quarter of the town, attacked the Per- 
sian plenipotentiary's house, which was besieged for 
some hours, and volleys after volleys of rifle-shots were 
fired at the windows, while from within Mirza Tekee 
only permitted his party to fire blank cartridges. Izzet 
Pasha, a drunken old gentleman of eighty, who had 
succeeded Kiamili Pasha as governor of Erzeroom 
through the intrigues of Enveri EfTendi, sat on horse- 
back and looked on, and took no part in the disturb- 
ance, though he had all his troops, amounting to sev- 
eral thousand men, under arms. For this conduct he 
was turned out of his government, and was succeeded 
by Bahri Pasha, who in 1847 was shot dead by one of 
his own servants, of the name of Delhi Ibrahim — acci- 
dentally or not, does not appear. 

Colonel Williams did every thing in his power to as- 



MIRZATEKEE. 65 



sist Mirza Tekee, and risked his life in the affray ; but 
he received no assistance from the Pasha or any of the 
authorities, who made no attempt to quell the riot. 

The Turks swore they would have blood, and that 
one of the Persians must be given up to them as a sac- 
rifice. A poor man, who had called that morning to 
say that he was going to Tabriz, and would be happy 
to carry any letters or messages there, was thrown out 
of the window and torn to pieces by the mob. Another 
Persian, a gentleman, secretary to Mirza Tekee, was 
killed by a butcher the same day, in another part of 
the town, where he was walking in ignorance of the 
disturbance that was going on. The Mirza's house 
was pillaged, the roof and doors broken in, and every 
thing destroyed that the mob could get hold of. He 
himself was only saved by barricading a strong room 
in a back part of the house, where he and his servants 
defended themselves for many hours, till the Turks dis- 
persed of their own accord. The Sultan afterward 
sent him £8000 in repayment of his losses in this dis- 
graceful outrage. 

In June, 1847, after he had signed the treaty of 
peace and commerce between Turkey and Persia with 
Enveri EfTendi and the British and Russian Commis- 
sioners, he returned to Tabriz. On the death of the 
Emir Nizam, he succeeded to his office of commander- 
in-chief. During the last illness of Mohammed Shah, 
Bahman Meerza had been intriguing in hopes of suc- 
ceeding to the throne ; but being unsuccessful, and be- 
ing also found out, he escaped to Teflis, where he still 
resides, and is protected by the Czar, who keeps him in 
terrorem over the present Shah, who may be dethroned 



QQ ARMENIA. 



any day, in which case Bahman Meerza is all ready to 
reign in his stead. 

When Mohammed Shah, who had done nothing all 
his life but shoot sparrows with a pistol, departed from 
this world, Mirza Tekee marched the Persian army to 
Teheran, and seated the young Prince Noor Eddin 
upon the throne. Noor Eddin Shah gave him his sister 
in marriage : she is said to have been much attached 
to her husband, who also succeeded to the immense 
territorial possessions of Hadji Meerza Agassi, the late 
prime minister of Persia. The Hadji had been tutor 
to Mohammed Shah, and became one of the most fa- 
mous of the Grand Yizirs of that most blundering of 
dynasties. As a matter of course, when he became 
rich enough he was robbed by his master, having been 
himself the greatest extortioner on record for many 
years. The Shah had allowed him to keep an enor- 
mous treasure in gold, silver, and jewels, with which 
he retired to Kerbela, where he died in the odor of sanc- 
tity in 1850. 

Mirza Tekee was now seated on the highest pinna- 
cle of the temple of prosperity. The extent of the pos- 
sessions which the Shah had handed over to him from 
the plunder of the Hadji was so great as to be hardly 
credible, and, by a judicious squeezing, the towns, vil- 
lages, and domains would have yielded the revenue of 
a petty king. However, all prime ministers are de- 
tested — that is, in human nature ; first, there is the op- 
posite party in politics, some of whom think different- 
ly as to the form and manner in which the taxes should 
be levied in Europe, the villages racked in Persia. All 
— whatever they may think on political subjects — feel 



MIRZA TEKEE. 



67 



sure they ought to be in place, rather than the party 
then in power ; if to these are added all thieves, rogues, 
revolutionists, and those sorts of people, who have a 
natural antipathy to all government, law, or possession 
of wealth in the hands of any man except the one in- 
dividual himself, he being more jealous of his friend 
than of any other person, a great mass of the popula- 
tion are not only opposed to the minister for the time 
being, but are in constant readiness to pull down what- 
ever is above them, good, indifferent, or bad. 

It is said that the great enemy of Mirza Tekee at 
court was the Shah's mother, a lady who in Persia 
and Turkey enjoys an extraordinary degree of power, 
wealth, and dignity. In Turkey, the Sultana Yalide 
has the right to build a royal mosque*, and to use a 
caique like that of her son ; she is above the law, and 
can do any thing she likes. If she likes to do good, she 
can do much good ; if she likes to do evil, she can do 
much evil. Between those who were jealous of the 
power and who hated the strong government of Mirza 
Tekee, a powerful party was created, who got hold of 
the weak mind of the young Shah, who owed every 
thing in this world to his minister ; his destruction 
was agreed upon, and he was given leave to go to 
Koom, where he had an estate. So secretly were af- 
fairs managed that his suspicions do not seem to have 
been aroused ; his young wife followed him, with all 
her train, looking forward to the pleasure of living with 
her husband for a while in the quiet and retirement of 
a beautiful country ; but when she arrived within 
sight of the town of Koom, a messenger came out to 
meet her, and the news that he brought was that Mir- 



68 ARMENIA. 



za Tekee had been killed by the order of her brother 
the Shah, whose emissaries had seized him unexpect- 
edly in the bath. He made a desperate resistance, 
but he was overpowered ; they opened his veins and 
held him down till the (xrand Vizir had bled to death. 
No crime whatever was alleged against him : he was 
murdered foully by the Shah, who thus destroyed one 
of his best and most honest subjects at the instigation 
of some of the most infamous and worst. This hap- 
pened in the year 1851. 

There is nothing, however, very unusual in this ter- 
mination of the life and fortunes of the prime minister 
of Persia, only it is usually done under more extenu- 
ating circumstances. The singular ideas which they 
entertain of the principles of government are summed 
up in the notion that it is better to be in the hands of 
one furious ogre than at the mercy of a hundred ty- 
rants. For this reason the tribes of the Kuzzulbash 
admire a truculent Shah, such as Aga Mohammed 
Shah, and they like a Grand Vizir who lets nobody rob 
and plunder except himself. When he is fat and fit 
for killing, the blood-drinker on the throne cuts off his 
head, or strangles him, as the case may be, and then 
takes possession of his property, throwing a sop to the 
mob occasionally by allowing them to sack the great 
man's house. I do not use the above-mentioned epi- 
thet as a term of reprehension or abuse, for Hunkiar is 
one of the recognized titles of the Sultan of Turkey 
and of other Eastern sovereigns. The treaty of Hun- 
kiar Skellessi, which made so great a sensation in its 
day, was so called from the name of a place on the 
Asiatic shores of the Bosporus. The name means 



KERB EL A. (39 



the " Blood-drinker's Stairs"' — an appellation at this 
time equally suited to either of the " high contracting 
powers." 

The plenipotentiaries and commissioners being as- 
sembled, every thing was in the greatest danger of 
falling to pieces on the outset, by the very first dis- 
patches which we received, as these related to a fright- 
ful massacre which had just taken place at Kerbela, 
where 22,000 Persians were reported to have been 
killed by the Turks. Kerbela, in the pashalik of Bag- 
dad, is a Turkish fortified place, containing the tomb 
of Hossein, the brother of Hassan, and son of Ali, the 
great saint of the Shiah, or Persian form of the Moham- 
medan religion. Not only do an immense number of 
Persians habitually reside there, but every one who has 
the power strives to retire there in his latter days, that 
he may lay his bones in the neighborhood of the gold- 
en dome which covers the ashes of Hossein. Those 
who die at a distance are so anxious at least to be 
buried at Kerbela, that the great article of commerce 
in that direction consists of the dead bodies of Persian 
men and women, which are brought by thousands ev- 
ery year, from all parts of the dominions of the Shah, 
by endless caravans of horses, mules, and camels, many 
hundreds of which unlucky animals pass their whole 
lives from year to year in carrying these horrid bur- 
dens, which infect the air in all the villages through 
which they pass. 

So great is the sanctity of Kerbela, that, in the esti- 
mation of the sect of Ali, it even may be said to sur- 
pass that of Mecca, for they, among Mohammedans, 
are those who " by their traditions have made the law 



70 ARMENIA. 



of none effect." The history of the death of Hossein 
is so interesting an episode in the history of this coun- 
try, that I am tempted to give a short account of it, 
for the benefit of those who may not he well acquaint- 
ed with the history of the successors of Mohammed, 
and upon whose fortunes so much of the welfare and 
also the policy of the various nations of the East, from 
the seventh century to the present time, depends — pre- 
mising that the principal cause of the rancorous hatred 
which always has existed, and still exists in full force, 
between the Sooni Turks and the Shiah Persians, is 
principally founded upon events connected with the 
death of the Imaum Hossein, and the feeling is kept up 
in full vigor in Persia by a sort of drama, representing 
the following history, which is enacted before the Shah, 
and in every town in Persia, every year, at the annual 
feast of Noo Rooz, which continues for ten days. In 
one of the acts of this most curious ceremony, a Frank 
embassador is brought before the audience, who inter- 
cedes for the life of Hossein and his followers with the 
general of the army of Yezid. Who he can have been 
there is no means of knowing, but he may possibly 
represent an embassador from the (xreek Emperor of 
Constantinople, who may have been passing on his 
way to the court of the Caliph. However this may 
be, his presence produces a kindly feeling toward Eu- 
ropeans in the minds of the Persian populace. 

On the death of Ali (A.D. 661), his eldest son, Has- 
san, was proclaimed Caliph and Imaum in Irak ; the 
former title he was forced to resign to Moawiyah ; the 
latter, or spiritual dignity, his followers regarded as in- 
alienable. His rival granted him a pension, and per- 



HISTORY OF HOSSEIN. 7-J 

mitted him to retire into private life. After nine years, 
passed for the most part in devotional exercise, he was 
poisoned by his wife Jaadah, who was bribed to per- 
petrate this execrable crime by Yezid, the son of Moa- 
wiyah. 

On the death of Moawiyah (A.D. 679), his son Yezid, 
who succeeded, having provoked public indignation by 
his luxury, debauchery, and impiety, Hossein was per- 
suaded by the discontented people of Irak to make an 
attempt for the recovery of his hereditary rights. The 
inhabitants of Cufa and Bassorah were foremost in 
their professions of zeal for the house of Ali, and sent 
Hossein a list of more than 124,000 persons, who, they 
said, were ready to take up arms in his cause. 

Hossein did not take warning from the inconstancy 
and treachery which these very persons had shown in 
their conduct toward his father and brother. Assem- 
bling a small troop of his personal friends, and accom- 
panied by a part of his family, he departed from Medi- 
na, the place of his residence, and was soon engaged in 
crossing the desert. But while he was on his journey, 
Yezid's governor in Irak discovered the meditated re- 
volt, capitally punished the leaders of the conspiracy, 
and so terrified the rest that they were afraid to move. 
"When Hossein arrived near the banks of the Euphrates, 
instead of finding an army of his devoted adherents, he 
discovered that his further progress was checked by the 
overwhelming forces of the enemy. Determined, how- 
ever, to persevere, he gave permission to all who pleased 
to retreat while there was yet time ; to their disgrace, 
many of his followers left him to his fate, and he con- 
tinued his route to Cufa, accompanied only by seventy- 



72 



ARMENIA. 



two persons. But every step increased his difficulties, 
and he attempted to return when it was too late. At 
length he was surrounded by the troops of the Caliph 
in the arid plains of Kerbela, his followers were cut off 
from their supply of water, and, when he offered to ne- 
gotiate, he was told that no terms would be made, but 
that he should surrender at discretion. Twenty-four 
hours were granted him for deliberation. 

Hossein's choice was soon made : he deemed death 
preferable to submission, but he counseled his friends 
to provide for their safety either by surrender or escape. 
All replied that they preferred dying with their beloved 
leader. The only matter now to be considered was 
how they could sell their lives most dearly ; they forti- 
fied their little encampment with a trench, and then 
tranquilly awaited the event. 

That night Hossein slept soundly, using for a pillow 
the pommel of his sword. During his sleep he dream- 
ed that Mohammed appeared to him, and predicted that 
they should meet the next day in Paradise. When 
morning dawned he related his dream to his sister 
Zeinab, who had accompanied him on his fatal expedi- 
tion. She burst into a passion of tears, and exclaimed, 
" Alas ! alas ! my brother ! What a destiny is ours ! 
My father is dead ! my mother is dead ! my brother 
Hassan is dead ! and the measure of our calamities is 
not yet full !" 

Hossein tried to console her. " Why should you 
weep?" he said; "did we not come on earth to die? 
My father was more worthy than I ; my mother was 
more worthy than I; my brother was more worthy 
than I. They are all dead ; why should not we be 



HISTORY OF HOSSEIN. 73 



ready to follow their example ?" He then strictly en- 
joined his family to make no lamentation for his ap- 
proaching martyrdom, telling them that a patient sub- 
mission to the divine decrees was the conduct most 
pleasing to God and his Prophet. 

When morning appeared, Hossein, having washed 
and perfumed himself, as if preparing for a banquet, 
mounted his steed, and addressed his followers in terms 
of endearing affection that drew tears from the eyes of 
the gallant warriors. Then, opening the Koran, he 
read the following verse : " God, be thou my refuge 
in suffering, and my hope in affliction." But the sol- 
diers of Yezid were reluctant to assail the favorite grand- 
son of the Prophet ; they demanded of their generals to 
allow him to draw water from the Euphrates, a per- 
mission which would not have been refused to beasts 
and infidels. " Let us be cautious," they exclaimed, 
" of raising our hands against him who was carried in 
the arms of God's apostle. It would be, in fact, to fight 
against himself." So strong were their feelings, that 
thirty cavaliers deserted to Hossein, resolved to share 
with him the glories of martyrdom. 

But Yezid's generals shared not in these sentiments. 
They affected to regard Hossein as an enemy of Islam. 
They forced their soldiers forward with blows, and ex- 
claimed, " War to those who abandon the true religion, 
and separate themselves from the council of the faith- 
ful !" Hossein replied, " It is you who have abandon- 
ed the true religion ; it is you who have severed your- 
selves from the assembly of the faithful. Ah ! when 
your souls shall be separated from your bodies, you 
will learn too late which party has incurred the penalty 

D 



74 ARMENIA. 



of eternal condemnation." Notwithstanding their vast 
superiority, the Caliph's forces hesitated to engage men 
determined on death ; they poured in their arrows from 
a distance, and soon dismounted the little troop of Hos- 
sein's cavalry. 

When the hour of noon arrived, Hossein solicited a 
suspension of arms during the time appointed for the 
meridian prayers. This boon was conceded with dif- 
ficulty, the generals of Yezid asking " how a wretch 
like him could venture to address the Deity;" and 
adding the vilest reproaches, to which Hossein made 
no reply. The Persian traditions relate a fabulous 
circumstance, designed to exalt the character of Hos- 
sein, though fiction itself can not increase the deep 
interest of his history. They tell us that while he 
was upon his knees, the King of the Genii appeared to 
him, and offered, for the sake of his father Ali, to dis- 
perse his enemies in a moment. " No," replied the 
generous Hossein, " what use is there in fighting any 
longer ? I am but a guest of one breath in this trans- 
itory world ; my relatives and companions are all 
gone, and what will it profit me to remain behind ? I 
long for nothing now save my martyrdom ; therefore 
depart thou, and may the Lord recompense and bless 
thee !" The genius was so deeply affected by the re- 
ply that his soul exhibited human weakness, and he 
departed weeping and lamenting. 

When the hour of prayer was past, the combat was 
renewed. One of Hossein's sons, and several of his 
nephews, lay dead around him ; the rest of his follow- 
ers were either killed or grievously wounded. Hith- 
erto he had escaped unhurt, for every one dreaded to 



MURDER OF HOSSEIN. 



75 



raise a hand against the grandson of Mohammed ; at 
length a soldier, more daring than the rest, gave him 
a severe wound in the head. Faint with the loss of 
blood, he staggered to the door of his tent, and with a 
hurst of parental affection, which at such a moment 
must have been mingled with unspeakable bitterness, 
took up his infant son, and began to caress him. 
While the little child was lisping out an inquiry as to 
the cause of his father's emotion, it was struck dead 
by an arrow in Hossein's arms. When the blood of 
the innocent, bubbling over his bosom, disclosed this 
new calamity, Hossein held up the body toward heav- 
en, exclaiming, " Lord ! if thou refusest us thy suc- 
cor, at least spare those who have not yet sinned, and 
turn thy wrath upon the heads of the guilty." Parch- 
ed by a burning thirst, Hossein made a desperate ef- 
fort to reach the banks of the Euphrates, but, when he 
stooped to drink, he was struck by an arrow in the 
mouth, and at the same moment one of his nephews, 
who came to embrace him for the last time, had his 
hand cut off by the blow of a sabre. Hossein, now 
the sole survivor of his party, threw himself into the 
midst of the enemy, and fell beneath a thousand weap- 
ons. The officers of Yezid barbarously mangled the 
corpse of the unfortunate prince ; they cut off his head, 
and sent it to the Caliph. 

The escort who guarded it on its way to the court 
of Yezid, halting for the night in the city of Mosul, 
placed the box which contained it In a mosque; one 
of the sentinels, in the middle of the night hearing a 
noise within, looked through a chink in the door, and 
saw a gigantic figure, with a venerable white beard, 



76 ARMENIA. 

take the head of Hossein out of its box, kiss it with 
reverence, and weep over it, a crowd of venerable per- 
sonages following his example, and weeping bitterly at 
the same time. Fearing that some of his partisans 
had gained admittance, and that they would carry 
away the head which he was guarding, he unlocked 
the door and entered the mosque, upon which one of 
the figures he had seen approached, and, giving him 
a blow upon the cheek, exclaimed, " The prophets 
have come to pay obeisance to the head of the mar- 
tyr : whither dost thou venture with such disrespect ?" 
In the morning he related what had happened to his 
commander, the impression of the hand and fingers of 
the ancient prophet being still visible on his cheek. 

The head of Hossein, and that of his brother Has- 
san, repose under a mosque of the highest sanctity at 
Cairo : it is called the mosque of Hassanen. Another 
mosque in the same city covers with its dome the re- 
mains of Sitte, or the lady Zeinab, their sister, who 
was famous for her beauty : her shrine is now visited 
with great devotion by the ladies and women of her 
faith. The headless body of Hossein was buried upon 
the spot where he fell, while above it afterward arose 
the present place of pilgrimage, so much resorted to by 
the Shiah sect. 

The Persian fanatics of Kerbela had long declined 
paying the accustomed taxes to the Turkish govern- 
ment. Their insolent behavior had been a constant 
source of anger and difficulty to successive Pashas of 
Bagdad. At last the present Pasha was determined 
to enforce the law : after sending various letters to the 
town requesting payment of taxes and arrears, which 



ATTACK ON KERBELA. 77 

were treated with ridicule and contempt, he gave or- 
ders to a general called Aboullabout Pasha, who ap- 
pears to have been a Sooni of the most orthodox kind, 
to march an army of several thousand men to compel 
the people of Kerbela to acknowledge the rule of the 
Sultan. Aboullabout Pasha arrived accordingly, and 
pitched his camp in a grove of palms not far from the 
walls of the city. He brought four guns with him, 
and a number of topgis, or gunners, to work these in- 
struments of destruction, if the Persians in the town 
did not choose to obey his commands. These imperti- 
nent fanatics treated the Turkish Pasha and his army 
with derision ; rode out in the cool of the evening to 
look at the encampment, called the Turks grandsons 
and great grandsons of dogs, whom they would soon 
pack off to their kennels at Bagdad 'and Constanti- 
nople. 

It seems that, trusting in the sanctity of the golden 
dome, they did not imagine that the Turks would dare 
to advance to extremities, particularly as several royal 
princesses and members of the family of the Shah had 
taken up their abode in the vicinity of the tomb of the 
Imaum. However, the four guns and the topgis ad- 
vanced to a position near the walls, and the Pasha sent 
a civil note to the insurgents within, to say that he 
would trouble them to pay his little bill ; at the very 
notion of which the Persians were seized with fits of 
laughter, they were so much amused at the idea of 
paying away their money to the Turks. After several 
demands for their surrender, the town was blockaded, 
and the Persians made various sallies on the Turk- 
ish lines, in which they were always repulsed, and, all 



78 * ARMENIA. 



warnings being disregarded, the four guns at last pro- 
ceeded to business. The walls tumbled down imme- 
diately, the Turks walked in, the Persians ran away, 
making very little effectual resistance, and fire and the 
sword, plunder and outrage of all kinds, took place in 
every quarter of the devoted city. When the Turkish 
troops entered the town, Aboullabout Pasha, who took 
it all in a religious point of view, had his carpet spread 
upon a bastion close above the breach, and having 
cursed Hassan and Hossein, Sitti Zeinab and Ali, of- 
fered ten shillings a piece for the heads of any of their 
followers ; and then went quietly to prayers for the rest 
of the morning, without making any effort to stop the 
horrors and excesses which occur when a city has been 
taken by storm. The accounts of the shocking out- 
rages and barbarities committed by the brutal soldiery 
are not fit to be repeated. When the town was pil- 
laged, and every thing had been seized that they could 
lay their hands upon, those who had not been fortunate 
in lighting upon any treasure, or any thing worth tak- 
ing away, bethought themselves of the manner in 
which profit and amusement might be combined, by 
cutting off every one's head that they could meet with, 
and taking it up to the pious old Pasha, who continued 
praying on his carpet on the bastion. When Persian 
heads became difficult to find, not being particular, a 
great many Turks were shot and decapitated by their 
fellow-soldiers, for the sake of their heads, the frater- 
nal feeling of nationality and Sooniism not being cal- 
culated to resist the offer of one ducat per head. If 
this had been suffered to continue, it is probable that 
the state of affairs would have resembled that of the 



REPORT OF COLONEL FARRANT. 79 

celebrated battle between the two Kilkenny cats, who 
ate each other up entirely with the exception of a 
small piece of fluff. When the massacre was stopped, 
22,000 persons were reported to have been slain. This 
was very much exaggerated, no doubt, and it does not 
appear that a very correct account could be made out. 
A most curious and interesting report was afterward 
drawn up on this subject by Colonel Farrant, who was 
deputed by the British government to proceed to Ker- 
bela for the purpose of pacifying the contending par- 
ties, and inquiring into the truth and extent of this ter- 
rible disaster. 

This was the first subject which the congress assem- 
bled to discuss measures of amity and mutual confi- 
dence between Turkey and Persia had brought before 
them — one not precisely calculated to insure that calm- 
ness of debate and general good- will which all wanted 
to establish. 

In course of time matters calmed down; things 
were what is called explained. "We were all wonder- 
fully civil to each other, and the Turkish and Persian 
followers of their respective plenipotentiaries did not 
express their private opinions of each other's merits 
till they got home and shut the door. 

Gradually they became more used to one another's 
ways, and the commissioners worked like special con- 
stables to keep the peace — and very hard work they 
had ; and it is wholly and entirely owing to their exer- 
tions that the Koordish tribes upon the frontiers, and 
the wild spirits on both sides who were ready to back 
them up, were kept down for more than ten years, 
during which time commerce has been enlarged, the 



80 ARMENIA. 

roads have been safe, and the Christian and agricul- 
tural population from Bussora to Mount Ararat have 
enjoyed a tranquillity and prosperity unknown in the 
memory of man. 



KOORDISH CHIEFTAINS. 81 



CHAPTER Y. 

The Boundary Question.— Koordish Chiefs.— Torture of Artin, an 
American Christian.— Improved State of Society in Turkey.— Ex- 
ecution of a Koord. — Power of Fatalism. — Gratitude of Artin' s 
Family. 

One of the most important of the affairs which were 
to be settled at Erzeroom was the geographical posi- 
tion of the boundaries between the two empires, for 
along the whole line there ran a broad belt of a kind 
of debatable land, upon which every man felt it his 
duty to shoot at every other man whom he did not get 
near enough to run through with his long spear, or 
knock upon the head with his mace, these ancient 
style of weapons being still in use among the Koords. 
For the purpose of gaining local information, many of 
the chiefs and principal persons of the wild districts in 
question were brought up to Erzeroom to be exam- 
ined before the plenipotentiaries and commissioners. 
Some of these were most original individuals. The 
following extract from a letter, written upon the spot, 
will give a faint idea of two or three of these singular 
chieftains. 

Extract of a Letter. 

"Erzeroom, August 11th, 1843. 
" One day passes much like another at Erzeroom, 
and though there seldom occurs any thing new to me, 
perhaps, as it would be all new to you, you may like 

D2 



Q2 ARMENIA. 



to hear how I pass my time, so I will give you a sort of 
journal of the proceedings of yesterday, that you may 
see how I occupy myself in this outlandish place. 
First of all, I got up in the morning, ate my breakfast, 
and then walked about the terrace on the top of the 
house. At eleven o'clock a messenger came from En- 
veri Effendi, to ask us to go to his house at one. So 
at one o'clock we went; the Russian commissioner, 
with his suite, came also. At the door of Enveri Ef- 
fendi's house I saw a fine mare, with very peculiar 
housings. It was held by a negro, and a Bedouin 
Arab was sitting on the ground near it. The head- 
stall was made of a red silk garter, which went over 
its head, and was attached to the bit by a piece of 
green leather strap ; the saddle was a common Arab 
saddle, but the housings, made of wadded red silk, 
ended in two immense tassels, one on each side of the 
horse's tail, and almost as large; the shovel-stirrups 
were beautifully embossed and inlaid with silver, and 
there was a heavy mace of the same workmanship 
under the right flap of the saddle. This curious horse 
belonged to Sheikh Thamir, the chief of the Chaab 
tribe, and ex-sovereign of all the land at the mouths of 
the Euphrates. All the time that I was examining 
the horse and talking about its accouterments, the 
Turkish guard were presenting arms, and they looked 
very much relieved when I turned round and went 
into the house. 

" The staircase of this palace is like a chicken-lad- 
der, and the hall at the top, where the servants wait, 
like a little barn or stable in England. Here, as I was 
kicking off my goloshes, I was seized by Enveri Effendi 



KOORDISH CHIEFTAINS. Q3 

himself, who had come up behind me. This was con- 
sidered as an excellent good joke by the Chaoushes, 
servants, &c, who stood in a row to receive us ; so we 
went into the selamlik (or reception room) together, 
and there I was introduced to three of the most pic- 
turesque people I have ever seen. The first was 
Osman Pasha, late Governor of Zohab; the second, 
Sheikh Thamir, whose horse I had been looking at out- 
side ; the third was yclept Abdul Kader Effendi, chief 
secretary to the government of Bussorah. These per- 
sons were dressed in flowing robes of various colors ; 
they had long beards, and enormous turbans of Cash- 
mere shawl. All three were remarkably ugly, strange- 
looking men, and I can not describe to you the pecu- 
liar way in which their clothes were put on, and the 
wild and almost magnificent appearance they present- 
ed. There were, besides these and ourselves, B 

Pasha and four other gentlemen, in the modern Turk- 
ish dress. The three commissioners and their two 
dragomans sat on the divan under the window, all, ex- 
cept myself, with their legs sticking out, like people 
waiting for an operation in a hospital. Enveri Effendi 
sat on a cushion on the floor, in the right-hand corner, 
and the others were ranged on the two sides of the 
room. As we were fourteen people, on a sudden four- 
teen servants rushed into the room with pipes; then 
one brought coffee on a tray, the brocade covering of 
which was thrown over his left shoulder; and then 
came a man bringing to each of us a cup, well frothed 
up, and in a zarf, or outer cup, of a different kind, ac- 
cording to the rank of the person to whom it was pre- 
sented. Enveri Effendi and the three commissioners 



84 



ARMENIA. 



had cups of enameled gold, the rest of the Pashas, &c., 
of silver. "When this ceremony was .concluded, the 
door was shut, the servants disappeared, a curtain was 
drawn across the door, and two chaoushes, with mus- 
kets, put to guard it outside. Then Enveri Effendi 
lifted up his voice, and, after swinging himself about, 
and grunting two or three times, he told us that the 
gentlemen in the turbans had brought up a number 
of old firmans, teskeres, and other papers relating to 
the lands between Zohab and the Persian (xulf; that 
he had examined them, and that now he begged the 
commissioners to put any questions they chose to the 
worthies before them respecting the lands, &c. 

" Then we all looked at each other for a little time, 
then they all looked at me. Then I took up my para- 
ble, and desired the dragoman to ask Osman Pasha 
who he was. *I am Osman Pasha,' said he; 'and 
I and my family have been sovereigns (or hereditary 
governors rather) of Zohab for seven generations.' 
Having asked him a great many questions, and writ- 
ten down his answers, which made him somewhat 
nervous, I turned to Sheikh Thamir. ' What is your 
fortunate name ?' said I ; upon which Sheikh Thamir 
opened his eyes, then he opened his mouth, then he 
looked at Abdel Kader, then he shut his mouth again, 
and said nothing. So I asked him again who he had 
the honor to be. "Upon this, Abdel Kader, who ap- 
peared to be his mentor or adviser, came and sat down 
by him, and said, 'He is Sheikh Thamir.' Sheikh 
Thamir upon this shouted out, at the top of his 
voice, ' Yes, I am Sheikh Thamir, the son of Grashban, 
who was the son of Osman, who was the son of — ' 



KOORDISH CHIEFTAINS. §5 

' Thank you,' I said, ' I only wanted to know from your 
own lips who you were, but am not particular as to 
the names of all your respected ancestors.' However, 
Sheikh Thamir was not to "be stopped in this way 
when he had once begun, so he shouted out a long 
string of names, and when he got to the end he said 
he was Sheikh of the Sheikhs of the great tribe of 
Chaab, and commander of the district of Grhoban, 
which his ancestors had held before him for one or two 
hundred years — or more, or less, as I pleased. In an- 
swer to other questions, which Abdel Kader always ac- 
companied with his own notes and commentaries, he 
said, 'I have no papers; we do not understand such 
things. What do I know ? I am an old man. I am 
forty-five years of age ; let me alone.', In course of 
time I did let him alone, and a difficult thing it was to 
draw out any information from this wild desert chief. 
Every now and then somebody else put in a word. At 
about four o'clock the meeting broke up. We return- 
ed home and dined, and in the evening went out rid- 
ing. Passing some tents, which the Pasha has set up 
at the other side of the town, near a tank — the only 
place where there are any trees near Erzeroom, and 
they are only about a dozen poplars — I saw a number 
of people, so I went up to the tents, and found Sabri 
Pasha, the commander of the troops, an Egyptian 
Pasha, who is come to buy horses for Mohammed Ali 
—-he has bought some hundreds; Bekir Pasha, some 
other military Pashas, Namik Effendi, &c, two little 
sons of Sabri Pasha, dressed in a very odd way, with 
petticoats of different colored silks in stripes ; he said 
it was the dress of the girls in Albania, but I never 



86 



ARMENIA. 



saw any thing like it in that country. Here we stayed 
and chatted with the Turks. The tents are superb ; 
the principal one was 100 feet long, with an open col- 
onnade round it, and lined inside with silk ; rich Per- 
sian carpets were spread on the ground. I have never 
seen so beautiful a tent. "When the moon rose I went 
away, a man carrying a meshaleh, a thing like a bea- 
con, on the top of a pole, with old cotton dipped in pitch 
burning in it; it is the best light there is for out-of- 
doors, as it never blows out, and gives much more 
light than any torches or lanterns. 

" When I got home I paid my respects to the kid, 
who came out to meet me ; and to the little cow, eight- 
een inches high, who sat in the door and would not get 
out of the way ; and having drank tea, I went to bed." 

On another occasion certain men represented to me 
that a Christian oda bashi, or chamberlain of a khan 
or inn, had been unjustly seized and tortured by the 
authorities, to make him confess to a robbery that had 
taken place in his khan, which in reality had been per- 
petrated by two Turkish soldiers ; but the oda bashi 
being a Christian, neither his evidence nor that of any 
other Christian could be taken in opposition to that of 
a Mohammedan, according to the Turkish law. The 
case was brought before me, and I took some interest 
in it. I had no authority whatever to deal with such 
questions as these, and it was only by representations 
to the Pasha that I was enabled to obtain justice for 
the unlucky oda bashi. 

Finding the case taken down at the time from the 
word of mouth of some of those who moved in it, I 



AFFAIR OF ARTIN. §7 

thought it might he interesting as a picture of man- 
ners in an out-of-the-way country, and I subjoin it 
without making any alterations in the language of 
this piece of justiciary business. 

Case of Artin, Oda Bashi, an Armenian. 

" Erzeroom, August 2d and 12th, 1843. 

"A merchant, named Mehemed, brought his mer- 
chandise to the Khan Grhenge Aga Khan, where he 
slept. Two soldiers slept near him. In the morning 
his goods were gone ; he accused the soldiers (who 
were the only people who had been near him) of the 
robbery ; they denied it, and were let off by the judge 
at the mekemme, before whom they had been taken. 
A Turkish woman, named Zeilha, saw the two soldiers 
bury something, upon which she told the merchant 
that his goods were buried at such a place by the sol- 
diers. He went there, and found half the goods ; the 
soldiers, therefore, were again taken up, when they 
confessed to the theft of half the goods, but said that 
the oda bashi, an Armenian, named Artin, had taken 
the other half. Artin was accordingly taken before 
the tribunal of the Kiaya ; the Pasha ordered him to 
be tortured on his declaring himself ignorant of the 
theft. A tass (metal drinking-cup) of hot brass was 
put about his head ; afterward a cord was tied round 
his head, two sheep's knuckle-bones were placed upon 
his temples, and the cord tightened till his eyes nearly 
came out. As he would not confess, his front teeth 
were then drawn one at a time ; pieces of cane were 
run up under his toe-nails and his finger-nails. Vari- 
ous tortures have been inflicted on him in this way for 



88 



ARMENIA. 



the last twelve days, and he is now hung up by the 
hands in the prison of the Seraskier, where he will he 
kept and tormented till he confesses or dies. This is 
the deposition of his wife Mariam, who begs me to in- 
terpose to save her husband, who, she declares, slept at 
home, and not in the khan, on the night when the rob- 
bery took place." 

According to the Turkish law, two witnesses of un- 
impeachable character are sufficient to convict any 
man of any crime, on their accusing him before the 
cadi. Only in the case of adultery four male witnesses 
are required. A woman's evidence is never taken, nor 
is that of a Christian or a foreigner held good in any 
case against a Mohammedan. These two soldiers, how- 
ever, being convicted thieves, their evidence was not 
valid according to the law, and the oda bashi seems to 
have been taken up and tortured by an entirely arbi- 
trary act of the Pasha. I went to the palace, and 
these are the words of Kiamili Pasha, the Governor 
and Viceroy of Erzeroom. 

" You are mistaken ; the man has not been tortured ; 
I have proof that he was at the khan that night ; he 
has been found guilty by the court (mekemme) on 
proper evidence, and sent to me to receive the punish- 
ment due to his offense. As I wished to recover the 
goods stolen for the benefit of their owner, the mer- 
chant Mehemed, I threatened the oda bashi that if he 
did not tell what he had done with his share of the 
property, it was in my power to inflict these tortures 
upon him. 

" After this he desired to be allowed to speak to the 



AFFAIR OF ARTIN. 89 

two soldiers who had possession of the other half of the 
goods. I consented, and sent him to the prison at Se- 
lim Pasha's palace, where they were confined. As I 
would not trust to the report of Selim Pasha's people, 
I sent a confidential man of my own, who was put in 
a place where he overheard all that passed. The oda 
bashi said to the soldiers, ' If you will say I am inno- 
cent, I will share my portion of the stolen goods with 
you, and you will gain by this, as your share has been 
taken from you, and I shall get off freely. Do this, and 
nobody will know.' 

" The oda bashi was brought back to his prison : 
when I asked him what he had said to the soldiers, he 
told me quite another story. Then I spoke to him in 
his own words, whereat he was astonished, but he kept 
silence. He is still in prison, and I am thinking what 
to do with him ; but he has not been tortured in any 
way ; and as you seem to take an interest in his case, 
I will set him free, and give him to you, to show my 
friendship for you." 

I replied, " I am glad to hear that the man has not 
been tortured, for in England we consider torture to be 
an act of unnecessary cruelty ; but your story alters the 
case. The man is certainly guilty, and as I only ask- 
ed for justice in this case, and I wish in all things to 
see justice done, I will not have the man ; let him be 
punished according to the law, only do not torture him. 

"The other day you hung a Koord opposite my 
windows ; he was a murderer, and you did right : it is 
by acts like these that a country such as this can be 
kept in order, and that protection is assured to those 
who do well." 



90 



ARMENIA. 



" I am sorry," said the Pasha, " that they hung the 
Koord before your windows. I told them not to hang 
him before the house of the Persian plenipotentiary, 
where there is a gibbet ; but to take him to any place 
where the Koords resorted, and as there are many cof- 
fee-houses near you, that is the reason probably why 
they hung him there. His story is a curious one : I 
have been looking after him for the last three years ; 
he has robbed and murdered many people, though he 
was so young a man, but he had always escaped my 
agents. At last, a few days ago, he stole a horse, in a 
valley near here, from a man who was traveling, and 
whom he beat about the head and left for dead. He 
brought the horse to Erzeroom and offered it for sale, 
when the owner, who had recovered, saw him selling 
the horse, and gave him up to the guard. He was 
brought up for judgment before me, when I said to 
him, Who are you ? After a silence, the man said, 
1 There is a fate in this, it can not be denied. I am 
* # # * ? whom you have been searching for these 
three years. My fate brought me to Erzeroom, and 
now I am taken up for stealing one poor horse. I felt 
when I took that horse that I was fated to die for it. 
My time is come. It is fate.' And he went to be 
hung without any complaint." 

I said he deserved it, and hoped others would take 
warning by his death. 

" I hope they will," the Pasha said, " but among 
the Koords of this country there are so few who do 
not deserve punishment, that if you see two persons 
you may be sure that one has stolen something. You 
can not see two people together here but that at least 
one has been a thief." 



AFFAIR OF ARTIN. 



91 



" "Well," I answered, "the British commissioners are 
two people whom your excellency has often seen to- 
gether, but I hope, in our case, when we leave the pa- 
shalik of Erzeroom, we may he convicted of having 
stolen nothing but your good opinion ;" and so I took 
my leave. 

In the evening, hearing that the wife of the oda 
bashi was in my house, I said to Paolo Cadelli, my 
servant, that my desire to liberate the Armenian was 
changed ; that he had not been tortured, but he was a 
thief. "How!" said Paolo, in a great state of excite- 
ment ;"a thief he may be, but tortured he certainly 
was, for in the morning did I not go forth into the ba- 
zaar to get wrappers (pestimal) of Persian silk? I 
went to the Bezestein, and there did I, not see the 
chief of the criers of the Bit Bazaar ? he is my friend. 
Did I not get from him the embroidery, the cloth of 
gold which you have, which is in your room ? And 
we went, did we not go together, to the court of the 
palace of the Pasha ? It is opposite, is it not opposite 
to the entrance of the Bezestein ? Do not the soldiers 
present arms to you there when you go in? Yes. 
There I went, and I saw the Armenian, a poor devil 
— quite a poor devil — -sitting down like a monkey, al- 
together quite stupid with fear and martyrdom. They 
had martyred him ; they had drawn his teeth ; his fin- 
ger-ends and toes were black, by reason of the canes 
they had run into them ; his thighs had been torn by 
pincers; he was half dead. He said to the people, 
' What can I do ? I am innocent ; kill me ; but I can 
not restore goods which I have not got.' Ah ! he is a 
Christian. Is he not a Christian — an Armenian? 



92 



ARMENIA. 



That is what these Turks do. They have not tor- 
tured the soldiers who are guilty. Certainly they 
have not, but this man has been tortured because he 
is an Armenian. They are Turks, my master (pad- 
rone) ; are they not Turks ? They are all Turks ; that 
is what they do ;" and with many ejaculations Paolo 
went away to cool down his indignation in the open 
air. 

I was surprised at this account. Yesterday, August 
5, .,* ■*'* Pasha came to breakfast, and I begged him 
to find out the truth. In the afternoon I was at En- 
veri Effendi's house; # * * Pasha was there, and he 
said the man had not been tortured ; that the account 
given me by Kiamili Pasha was correct ; that the man 
was out of prison, but that the Pasha would seek for 
him and send him to me. 

I heard that, after I went to the Pasha, the Pasha 
sent for the Kiaya, and finding the oda bashi had been 
tortured, he found great fault with him, and ordered 
the man to be released the next day. He is sentenced, 
as he understands, to pay the half of the value of the 
goods stolen. "While I was with the Pasha, the To- 
phenkyi Bashi was enraged with this poor victim for 
getting the assistance of the Franks, as he thought 
that we were come to the Pasha on his account, where- 
as our visit was on public business in no way connect- 
ed with this affair. It appears that while we were 
sitting on the divan in the Pasha's hall of audience, 
the Tophenkyi Bashi was employed during the same 
time in inflicting additional torments on the unfortu- 
nate oda bashi ; he snapped his pistol at his head, and 
informed him that the Pasha had given orders that he 



AFFAIR OF ARTIN. 93 



was to "be hanged in the course of the day. The oda 
bashi, after we had rescued him from his various tor- 
mentors, presented himself before me. He was a 
good-looking man, about thirty-five years of age, with 
a black beard, and respectably dressed in blue, in the 
style usually adopted by the Armenian Christians. He 
said he had been tortured by the order of the Kiaya 
Bey ; the bones were put to his temples, some of his 
teeth drawn, his nails pierced, his left thigh torn with 
pincers ; he was hung up by the arms by ropes, but 
the hot cup was not placed upon his head. He show- 
ed me the marks of the pincers and other scars about 
his body — evident proofs of the truth of his assertion. 
The two soldiers who were convicted of having stolen 
the goods (the oda bashi being entirely ignorant of the 
whole transaction) were to be brought before the Coun- 
cil on the following Monday. They are now in pris- 
on, and will be sentenced to pay the other half of the 
value of the stolen goods. This information the oda 
bashi received from the merchant Mehemed, the own- 
er of the lost property. He has not heard any other 
particulars about the soldiers. 

From the above account it appears that much injus- 
tice may probably be carried on by the inferior officers 
of the government which never gets to the ears of the 
Pasha, small officials being notoriously more tyrannical 
than greater men. The Pasha himself appears to be 
a kind-hearted, well-intentioned man in a general way ; 
but, in cases where his own interest is not directly con- 
cerned, he does not look into the affairs of the pashalik 
with sufficient keenness to prevent his subordinate offi- 
cers from practicing various acts of oppression and ex- 



94 ARMENIA. 



tortion, according to the fashion of the good old times, 
when Turkey, like the United States of America, was 
a land of liberty, where every free and independent cit- 
izen had the right to beat his own nigger ; for, accord- 
ing to some doctors of the law, pashas, vizirs, &c, might 
cut off a few heads every day for no given reason, but 
just for amusement. The Sultan had the privilege of 
destroying fourteen lives per day of his faithful sub- 
jects, who might have committed no crime ; after that 
number, some reason was expected to be shown for the 
further use of the sword and bow-string on that day. 
Now the case is altered: fewer crimes are committed 
in Turkey than in London, and the Turkish pashas en- 
deavor to stop such practices as are considered discred- 
itable on the part of the inferior officers ; though they 
have to contend with great difficulties in a country 
where it is hardly possible to get at the truth, and 
where the inferior officers have for generations been 
accustomed to plunder those below them, directly they 
are out of sight of the higher authorities ; trusting to 
the want of communication, the slight knowledge of 
writing, and the many obstacles in the way which pre- 
vent the poor man's story getting to the ears of the 
Pasha or the Sultan, who, in these days at least, are 
anxious to remedy such abuses, and to distribute jus- 
tice with a tolerably impartial hand. I had great sat- 
isfaction in hearing afterward that, owing to my exer- 
tions in this and other cases — the good cause being 
taken up warmly by Colonel Williams, after I was gone 
— all torture was authoritatively abolished in the pasha- 
lik of Erzeroom ; and I am in hopes that, except in 
some snug little dungeon in the rocky castle of a half 



EXECUTION OF A KOORD. 



95 



independent Koordish chief, this horrible custom is al- 
most extinct. 

The Koord above mentioned was hanged in so orig- 
inal a manner that I must shortly describe it, as it 
took place immediately under my window. What we 
called at school a cat-gallows was erected close to a 
bridge, over the little stream which ran down the horse- 
market, between my house and the bottom of the hill 
of the citadel. The culprit stood under this ; the cross- 
beam was not two feet above his head ; a kawass, hav- 
ing tied a rope to one end of the beam, passed a slip- 
knot round the neck of the Koord, a young and very 
handsome man, with long black hair; he then drew 
the rope over the other end of the beam, and pulled 
away till the poor man's feet were just off the ground, 




when he tied the rope in a knot, leaving the dead body 
hanging, supported by two ropes in the form of the let- 



9(3 ARMENIA. 



ter Y. Hardly any one was looking on, and in the aft- 
ernoon the body was taken down and buried. 

I shall always consider this case as a remarkable in- 
stance of the power of fatalism over the mind of an 
ignorant and superstitious man. This Koord was en- 
tirely the cause of his own execution: no one knew 
him by sight at Erzeroom, and there was not the slight- 
est necessity for his declaring his name to the Pasha, 
and confessing that he had committed murders and 
outrages of all kinds among the villages of Koordis- 
taun. His punishment for stealing a horse would not 
have been very severe, and, but for his voluntary ad- 
mission that he was a notorious malefactor, for whom 
the police had long been on the look-out, he might have 
been alive to this day, to rob and murder, till somebody 
shot him, or he became too old for the exertion. Fa- 
talism, in other cases, has a powerful influence over 
the true believers in the armies of Islam. The soldier 
ffoes to battle with the firm belief that, if his hour is 
not come, the cannon of the enemy can have no power 
over him ; and that if his hour is arrived, the angel of 
death will call him, whether he may be seated on his 
divan, or walking in full health in his garden at home : 
just as readily does he bow his head to fate in one 
place as in another. By this institution of the Koran, 
the wonderful genius of Mohammed has gained many 
a victory by the hands of his trusting and believing 
followers for the caliphs and sultans of his creed. Some 
of the reforms of Sultan Mahmoud, by treating lightly 
many of the ancient prejudices of the Osmanlis, have 
shaken the throne under his feet. The progress of in- 
fidelity, which has begun at Constantinople, is the great- 



TURKS AND CHRISTIANS. 



97 



est temporal danger to the power of the Turkish em- 
pire. The Turk implicitly believes the tenets of his 
religion ; he keeps its precepts and obeys its laws ; he 
is proud of his faith, and prays in public when the hour 
of prayer arrives. How different, alas ! is the manner 
in which the divine laws of Christianity are kept! 
The Christian seems ashamed of his religion; as for 
obeying the doctrines of the Gospel, they have no per- 
ceptible effect upon the mass of the people, among 
whom drunkenness, dishonesty, and immorality prevail 
almost unchecked, except by the fear of punishment 
in this world ; while in Turkey not one tenth part of 
the crime exists which is annually committed in Chris- 
tendom. 

A few days after this occurrence, as I was sitting in 
the summer chamber at the top of the house, I heard 
a most extraordinary shuffling and screeching behind 
the curtain which hung over the door ; the curtain 
shook about, and numerous subdued voices and noises 
were heard, which sounded like cocks and hens suffer- 
ing from strangulation. - 1 shouted out to know what 
in the world was going on ; after a while the kawass 
drew aside the curtain, and along the floor advanced a 
most strange and incomprehensible procession of sev- 
eral women and men, crawling on their hands and 
knees, each with a cock or a hen in their hands, whose 
fluttering, and screaming, and crowing now broke forth 
in full chorus; one or two got away, and flew about 
the room, as its owner, making use of her hands to 
walk with, was unable to hold the terrified fowl. This 
procession advanced to the divan, and, without saying 
a word, the foremost woman seized hold of one of my 

E 



98 ARMENIA. 



legs, which was inadvertently sticking out, and, hold- 
ing on to my ankle, kissed my foot, and burst out into 
a string of exclamations in Armenian, no one word of 
which made any impression on my understanding. 
Being horribly alarmed, I kicked as well as I could, 
and, having escaped into the remotest corner of the 
divan, I begged to know what all this portended ; and 
on the chickens being caught, and comparative silence 
obtained, I found that these were the family of the 
poor oda bashi, who had brought the chickens as a 
present, and came with tears to thank me for saving 
their father, brother, or husband. They were really 
pained, poor people, when I would not accept the cocks 
and hens, for, though of little value, it looked like re- 
ceiving a bribe for justice ; and, after a long explana- 
tion of my strange notions, they walked off in smiles 
upon their hind legs, the cocks crowing triumphantly 
on their way down stairs. 



CLOCK OF ERZEROOM. 99 



CHAPTER YI. 

The Clock of Erzeroom. — A Pasha's Notions of Horology. — Pathology 
of Clocks. — The Tower and Dungeon. — Ingenious Mode of Torture. 
— The modern Prison. 

In the citadel — a place which, might, with great 
ease, be rendered very strong, but which now is desert- 
ed and disused, having, I believe, been knocked to 
pieces in the Russian war— -there are still two or three 
curious ancient tombs and some other incomprehensi- 
ble old buildings. The building containing the prison, 
which was in constant use in the good old times, and 
the tower, from whence the flag of Turkey is display- 
ed, possessed an old clock, which had been out of order 
for many years before the Russians carried it away, 
but which was the wonder and admiration of all 
Koords, Armenians, and strangers from the mountains, 
to whom time was "no object," and who considered 
this old clock, with its dial and hands, as some sort of 
talisman beyond the comprehension of ordinary folks. 
Erzeroom was indeed lifted up in the estimation of 
those unsophisticated herdsmen and robbers, as the 
only place they ever heard of where any thing in the 
nature of a clock was to be seen. It might happen 
that some few of those who not only were possessed of 
such an outlandish article as a watch, but who were in 
some measure initiated into the uses of that strange 
production, would expatiate learnedly in the coffee- 



100 



ARMENIA. 



houses on the wondrous properties of the great talis- 
man in the tower of the citadel, which, in all probabil- 
ity, from its great size and exalted position, was con- 
sidered as the father of all the little watches of the 
sheikhs and chiefs among the tribes. As for the clock 
not going, that signified but little. Talleyrand said 
that speech was accorded to man for the purpose of 
enabling him to conceal his sentiments. The big 
clock had doubtless his reasons for holding his tongue, 
and telling no lies ; I believe his reputation was in- 
creased by his silence, as is the case among many 
other distinguished characters besides the clock of Er- 
zeroom. Now it came to pass, once upon a time, that 
the great Pasha or viceroy of the wide realms of this 
great pashalik chanced to be a philosopher ; he knew 
that clocks, though they might have been made to sell, 
besides this very primary quality, also ought to go, but 
no artificer in the land of Armenia was competent to 
accomplish this desirable end. "Whenever a Frank 
traveler — not that there ever were any travelers by 
profession in those days — but whenever a Frank doctor 
or hakim made his appearance in those regions, he was 
always received with distinguished civility by the Pa- 
sha, who, after the preliminaries of coffee, Kef enis 
ayi — "may your powers of enjoyment be in good 
order !" — always ended with an expression of his de- 
sire that the Frank would immediately set about the 
repairs of the clock. 

" Sir, your excellency," said the poor man, " I am a 
doctor ; I am not a watchmaker or a mechanic. I 
don't understand clocks ; it is not in my power to set 
the clock right ; it is not in my line of business. I 



PATHOLOGY OF CLOCKS. ^01 



am very sorry, but, Effendim, I fear I am unable to 
meet your wishes in this point." 

" Dog of a Frank," quoth the Pasha, " great-grand- 
father's uncle to all dogs, more particularly those of 
Frangistaun, is it not thy base profession to meddle 
with the bowels of mankind ? canst thou not expel 
ginns, and evil spirits, and other things, which have 
taken up their abode in the innermost recesses of the 
bodies of true believers, which thine eye can not pene- 
trate, while, nevertheless, thou turnest their livers up- 
side down, and their souls inside out ; and all this by 
the accursed aid of thy wretched Frankish incanta- 
tions ; shooting thine arrows at them, or rather send- 
ing down their throats certain wicked and diabolical 
contrivances, which are known by the barbarians of 
thy benighted country by the name of pills ? Dost 
thou pretend to see all that is going on in the stomach 
of a follower of the Prophet, and wilt thou tell me with 
the same breath that thou canst not administer to the 
disorganized constitution of a clock ? Hath not a clock 
a pulse, when he is alive and in good health ? Go 
thou, feel his pulse, and see whether it is fast or slow ; 
whatever thou mayest want, thou shalt have ; my ha- 
kim bashi shall assist you, only cure the clock. All 
Franks make clocks : I have it from authority : do not 
pretend that thou canst not set the clock going again, 
for surely thou canst restore it to life, and make it 
strike, and do all that it ought to do. Behold, thou 
art a Frank ! Guards ! take the Frank up into the 
tower, and make him mend the clock ; and if the un- 
believing dog will not mend the clock, then put him 
into the dungeon down below till he confesses that he 



102 ARMENIA. 



is ready to do as he is commanded by the Pasha of the 
true believers." 

In this way every audience concluded. The un- 
lucky Frank, having been exalted to the top of the 
tower, and exhorted to repair the rickety old clock, 
which had lost half its works, was debased into the 
dungeon, there to remain till further notice. Having 
often heard this story of the good old times, I one day 
proceeded to the citadel to see the tower where the 
clock had been, and to examine the dungeon, where I 
should have been sent if I had arrived at Erzeroom 
fifty or sixty years ago. This dungeon really was a 
dungeon : any thing so terrible as an abode for a hu- 
man being I never saw before. The pozzi at Venice 
were rather pleasant and agreeable places of retire- 
ment, compared with the abode of many a poor Frank, 
in whose education the art and craft of clockology had 
been unfortunately omitted. 

At the foot of that which had been the clock-tower 
was a range of small low rooms, of which two were 
particularly belonging to the prison : the outer room 
of the two was larger than the other ; this was appro- 
priated to the guards, who kept watch and ward, and 
who fed, or did not feed, the wretched prisoners under 
their care. The inner room was small and low, and 
had one window, through which the light and air had 
to struggle with the opposition of heavy crossed and 
re-crossed iron bars. The window looked into the 
castle yard, but the room was so dark that I could 
hardly see my way. 

" A horrible place for the poor prisoners," said I to 
my guides ; " little chance of their escape from these 



THE DUNGEON. 203 

thick walls, and heavy bars, and low, strong roof; they 
must have been safe enough here." 

" Oh Effendim," said the kawasses, " this is not the 
prison. Here is the prison at your feet, down below." 

"Where?" said I. 

" Look down," they replied, " on the middle of the 
floor ; there is the entrance ; you can. not see the dun- 
geon itself, for it is, perhaps, a little dark." 

In the centre of the floor of this dismal cell was a 
heavy wrought-iron grating, square, made of great 
bars, about six inches apart, seemingly of enormous 
weight, lying on the ground, and fastened down with 
two or three huge rusty padlocks on one side, and some 
lumbering old hinges on the other. This iron grate 
was opened and raised up for my especial edification, 
and there appeared under it the mouth of a narrow 
well cut in the rock, perhaps two feet and a half in di- 
ameter, which sank down into the darkness far below. 
" Now," said my informants, " if you stand on this 
side, and look steadily till your eye is accustomed to 
the gloom, you will be able to distinguish something 
white a good way down ; that is a square stone, like 
a table, in the middle of the vault, upon which the 
jailers let down the provisions for the prisoners, as 
they can see on that stone when the things arrive at 
the bottom." This was the old dungeon, the common 
prison not many years ago ; but, I believe, since the 
reign of Hadji Kiamili Pasha, few or none had been 
consigned to this horrible abode. The shape of it be- 
low, I understood, was that of the inside of a bottle ; 
it was between twenty and thirty feet deep ; vermin, 
dirt and filth, and foul air, formed its only furniture ; 



104 



ARMENIA. 



and into this awful hole many and many an innocent 
man had been let down : some to he brought up again 
to pay a ransom of all that they possessed, some to lin- 
ger there for years, and some to die and rot unnoticed 
if no food was provided for them by government, when 
their bones, if not their flesh, gave token to the next 
inhabitants of what they were to expect, unless their 
interest or their wealth was greater than that of the 
poor wretch whose remains lay there before them. 

An ingenious and horrible species of torture was 
sometimes added to the discomforts of this dread abode : 
a large piece of raw flesh was thrown down into the 
dungeon; the vermin, and the effluvia which it pro- 
duced, added to other miseries, made the existence of 
the wretched prisoner almost intolerable. 

The modern prison is bad enough : it consists of a 
number of cells opening on a small paved court-yard. 
The prisoners, being just shoved through the door, 
have to shift for themselves inside, where a kind of 
Pandemonium exists ; the stronger Koords bullying 
and tyrannizing over the weaker felons, who have nei- 
ther fire nor candle during the intense cold of a great 
part of the year : so I was told ; but I was not there 
in the winter, and hope these unhappy wretches may 
be allowed a little tezek occasionally to keep their dirty 
bodies and souls together. 



SPRING IN ERZEROOM. ^Q^ 



CHAPTER VII. 

Spring in Erzeroom.— Coffee-house Diversions. — Koordish Exploits. 
— Summer Employment. — Preparation of Tezek. — Its Varieties and 
Uses. 

When the snows of winter have melted, and the air 
becomes more temperate, the population of Erzeroom 
begin to revive. The women and children, who, like 
the bears, lemmings, and marmottes, have hybernated 
all the winter, now peep with red eyes out of their 
subterranean habitations ; those streets situated upon 
hills, as most of them are, become torrents of melted 
snow, which cut deep ravines through the frozen mass 
which is piled up many feet on each side ; narrow 
paths are gradually dug out from the low doors of the 
Armenian man-burrows toward the central river of the 
street ; the winking children creep out to blink their 
eyes at the sun, and enjoy the fresh air ; fusty cows, 
who have been buried for eight months, come slowly 
staring out ; every now and then a more adventurous 
infant is carried away by the stream, and its body 
quickly devoured by the ravenous dogs at the out- 
skirts of the town ; wolves, it is said, though I never 
saw one, prowl about, and eat the dog that ate the 
child, that came out to see the weather so mild, in the 
street by the house that (not) Jack built. Women 
now scream to each other in shrill voices, as they pitch 
down large wooden spadefuls of half-melted snow upon 
the heads of those who are passing in the street ; knots 

E 2 



106 ARMENIA. 



of Tartars, Circassians, and Lazes, and Koords, in iron- 
heeled boots and white woolen trowsers, tell lies to 
each other at the doors of the coffee-houses, which are 
answered with dignified exclamations of Wullah ! Bil- 
lah ! nobody believing his neighbor's lie, but consider- 
ing straightway how he can invent a deliberate false- 
hood to lay before the other liars in his turn. Every 
now and then one of these stories is true, when a ca- 
daverous-looking Koord, hung round with arms and 
leaning on his lance,, with the black ostrich feathers at 
the top, being a practical man with very little imagin- 
ation, coolly relates the history of the sacking of a de- 
fenseless village, where murder unresisted, rapine, sac- 
rilege in the burning of the mosque, and spearing the 
children who run shrieking from the flames of their 
homes, bear with it the impress of truth, with the con- 
viction on the part of any honest man (if there should 
be one in the party) that, although the rest are liars, 
the only truthful narrator is a brute of that atrocious 
kind, that the falsehoods of the rest are trifles, like 
chaff before the wind, in comparison with the real and 
true experiences of this infernal child of hell. Such 
as this are the Koords ; their only virtue is that they 
are not cowards ; but, although they subscribe to a 
nominal adherence to the Mohammedan religion, the 
most liberal Imaum would be ashamed to own them. 
The Yezedis, who worship the devil, are angels in com- 
parison. Yet they are superstitious to a curious de- 
gree, as the foregoing anecdote of the Koord who was 
hung through giving evidence about himself testifies. 
At the commencement of the summer the whole city 
of Erzeroom is engaged, even to desperation, in making 



PREPARATION OF TEZEK. IQj 

tezek ; you hear, smell, and see nothing else. How 
are you off for tezek ? Tezek katch, chok tezek, tezek 
var bourda chok, chok, evet, tezek Effendim, katch 
gooroosh : in short, no one cares for any thing except 
tezek, and he who has most tezek is the greatest man, 
and he who has but little tezek he is naught — no one 
cares for him, or, indeed, for any thing else except the 
one absorbing topic of tezek. 

The cows, and bulls, and oxen having reappeared on 
upper earth, the Augean stable is cleared out. Tezek, 
the only fuel of Erzeroom, consists of the production 
into which the said oxen have converted their food for 
many months ; it is trodden down hard, and is dug out 
by zealous Armenians, and brought exultingly to the 
tops of the houses ; it is mixed with a gtiod deal of the 
chopped straw with which horses, and oxen, and sheep 
are fed while in the subterranean stables ; more chop- 
ped straw is added, mixed with water ; and, except the 
higher class of grandees, such as the Pasha, the com- 
mander-in-chief, and the author, all true men were em- 
ployed on the tops of their houses, treading the chop- 
ped straw into the tezek with their naked feet, their 
full Turkish trowsers being pulled up and tied with a 
belt round their waists. With a stick to lean upon, 
they are there all day, trotting about, up to their knees 
in tezek, shouting to each other ; Mohammed bringing 
some more water to pour upon it ; Hassan staggering 
up the ladder with more tezek of the genuine unadul- 
terated kind from the recesses of the stable ; Bekir with 
a great basket of chopped straw ; and then all set to 
with a will, and tread steadily for an hour or two, as 
sailors do round a capstan, for the dear life ; and when 



108 ARMENIA. 



they get very hot they wipe their brow with a tezeky 
sleeve, and their sleeve with a fold of a tezeky trowser, 
so that they become altogether tezekious before the 
sun sets upon their labors, and veils his nose, if not his 
eyes, under the clouds which hang over the eternal 
snows in the dreaded passes of the mountains of Hosha- 
bounar. The tezek being trodden into a stiff clayey 
state, about six or seven inches thick, is left alone for 
a day or two to dry; amateurs, however, scrambling 
up to the top of the house to see how it is going on, to 
pick a bit off, and look at it cunningly, and smell it, to 
find whether it has the true flavor. There are Arme- 
nians who are knowing in tezek, who understand the 
thing ; and over a remarkably good batch a knot of 
the fancy will sit on little stools, and smoke their pipes, 
and discuss the question scientifically ; telling tales of 
former celebrated heaps, and of Hadji such a one, who 
was famous in that line, and of one Bokchi Bashi, who 
had an astonishing talent in the preparation of inimita- 
ble tezek. 

When it is all ready, it is dug out in square blocks, 
and carried down the ladders again carefully in open 
baskets, and piled up in the inner treasuries below, and 
stored for the fuel of the future winter. It is better 
for being old, when it resembles peat turf. It gets 
somewhat dusty in a year or so, and then rivals that 
sort of snuff called Irish blackguard in its capacity for 
making you sneeze, if you venture to move a clod of it 
to put upon the fire; it then burns clear and clean, 
without flame, and is very hot ; but when more fresh 
— though that is not the word — more new, I may say 
— it produces a thick stifling smoke, very odoriferous, 



TEZEK. 109 

and not generally appreciated by those who do not love 
tezek for itself, or who are not at that time maneuver- 
ing to make you purchase an astounding bargain of 
the precious fuel of their own particular manufacture. 
Erzeroom is not alone in the production of this arti- 
cle of merchandise. From thence through the whole 
of Tartary as we call it, or Turkistaun as they call it, 
this fuel is in universal use as far as the Great "Wall 
of China. Great care is taken sometimes in the pro- 
duction of it for various artistic purposes. In Thibet it 
is called arghol, and in the very remarkable travels of 
M. Hue, it is related that that which comes from sheep 
and goats is more valuable for the purpose of smelting 
iron and other metals, as it gives a greater heat, and, 
instead of leaving any ash, melts into a* vitreous mass 
of a bluish green color. I never saw any of this my- 
self, though it may have been used at Erzeroom, for 
this place was lately famous for the workmanship in 
iron and steel by seven brothers, whose productions are 
valuable under the name of Yedi Kartasch, as Man- 
ton added a value to those guns to which his name 
was affixed. The tezek of oxen and cows ranks next; 
that of horses and donkeys last, from the quantity of 
smoke produced by it ; that of the oxen, with the slight- 
est possible flavor of donkey, was certainly most fash- 
ionable at Erzeroom. 



;QQ ARMENIA. 



CHAPTER VIII. 

The Prophet of Khoi. — Climate. — Effects of great Elevation above 
the Sea. — The Genus Homo. — African Gold-diggings. — Sale of a 
Family. — Site of Paradise. — Tradition of Khosref Purveez. — Flow- 
ers. — A Flea-antidote. — Origin of the Tulip. — A Party at the Cave 
of Ferhad, and its Results. — Translation from Hafiz. 

The atmospheric peculiarities of this climate are 
such, that the weather, as a general rule, may be con- 
sidered as on the way from bad to worse. Earthquakes 
more or less severe are often felt. A severe one occur- 
red in the year 1843, and in the same year the town 
of Khoi was almost entirely destroyed by one of these 
awful convulsions of nature. A circumstance occur- 
red on that occasion which was very remarkable, if 
true. A dervish or fakir of distinguished sanctity 
felt himself about to die, and, calling his friends and 
disciples around the couch of skins on which he lay, he 
prophesied that a terrible disaster was about to fall 
upon the town of Khoi ; that the lives of many would 
fall into the hands of Monkir and Nakir on that day ; 
but that those faithful believers who accompanied his 
body to the tomb would be permitted to escape from 
the sword of the avenging angel for his sake. The old 
man died, and, being held in universal reverence, the 
greater part of the inhabitants of Khoi followed his 
corpse to the burial-ground, which was situated at 
some distance from the town. While absent on this 
pious errand, a tremendous earthquake suddenly re- 



CLIMATE. m 



duced the city to ruin. So complete was the destruc- 
tion that hardly a house was left standing, and many 
of those who had remained at home perished in the fall 
of their habitations, while those who had accompanied 
the body of the dervish to the grave were saved from 
the disaster, as he had prophesied. 

This is a wonderful story ; I heard it at the time, 
and was very much struck with the peculiar circum- 
stances of the case. Its accuracy would be difficult 
either to prove or to disprove, but the history as I have 
narrated it was current at the time when the earth- 
quake happened. 

Pillars of dust, like those of sand seen in the deserts 
of Africa and Arabia, are supposed to be the works of 
evil spirits, and often stalk like giants across the plain. 
The deep narrow valleys and ravines which slope down 
from the elevated plateau of Erzeroom, are unhealthy 
and pestilential in the extreme, while the inhabitants 
of the upper country enjoy good health enough. Here 
the corn returns about five-fold to the labor of the sow- 
er : one being retained for seed, four bushels is the ex- 
tent of the profit of the husbandman for one which he 
had sown. The summer, though very short, is hot 
and parching, the thermometer being usually about 
84, though it rises occasionally, I think, to nearly 90. 
The cold in winter is commonly 16 degrees below zero 
of Fahrenheit, and is often colder. The mercury in 
my thermometer, which was not calculated for such a 
climate, quietly retired into the ball in the autumn, 
and never came out again while I remained at Erze- 
room. The great height of the town above the sea 
was exemplified in a practical manner to me on my 



112 ARMENIA. 



first arrival. I was in a state of constant wrath about 
the tea : the tea was excellent, of the very best quali- 
ty, but the decoction thereof was always a failure. In 
vain was the kettle placed upon the fire by my side ; 
in vain did the semavar, the best of tea-urns, boil and 
steam. Double, double, toil and trouble ! the fire burn- 
ed and the caldron bubbled, but the tea was vapid. 
As for the eggs, I don't know how long it took to boil 
them till the white was fixed. The reason of all this 
only occurred to me one day when I put my finger 
into some almost boiling water, which by no means 
scalded me — for water boiled at 196° of Fahrenheit, as 
we were between 7000 and 8000 feet above the level 
of the sea; and, consequently, though boiling and 
steaming away, it was not hot enough to produce the 
effects of water boiling at the heat of 212°, which is 
the temperature at which it boils in London. 

Nature has provided a kettle of her own, in a hot 
spring at Elije, near which place I was informed that 
there was a rock against which iron stuck of its own 
accord — a rock of loadstone ; but I never had an op- 
portunity of verifying this report. 

The natural history of the highlands of Armenia is 
particularly interesting, and rich in flowers hardly 
known to Europeans, and in the prodigious quantities 
of birds which breed on the plain of Erzeroom, and in 
the valleys and water-courses of the neighborhood. 

The quadrupeds are not numerous ; the climate is 
too rigorous for those not provided with thick furs to 
protect them from the tremendous cold. 

The fish consist only of a sort of barbel, which is 
found in the high waters of the Euphrates, and of 



THE GENUS HOMO. -Q3 

three kinds of trout, swarming in the lesser streams 
and rivulets which flow down from the snowy mount- 
ain-tops. 

To commence with the highest order of mammalia : 
some extraordinary specimens of the genus Homo are 
to be met with in many parts of the East, generally in 
the character of Frank doctors. Erzeroom was not 
wanting in productions of this kind. The character 
of these adventurers is in every instance precisely 
alike : they are all sharp and so-called clever men, 
speaking several languages correctly, with a smatter- 
ing of general knowledge, but understanding nothing 
perfectly, and all wanting in the same two qualities — 
judgment and principle, the consequence of which 
want is, that not one in a hundred succeeds in life, 
and, after passing through a series of strange changes 
of fortune, they usually die unlamented, as poor as 
when they began their erratic career. 

The adventures of one old gentleman, with whom I 
was acquainted here, was so extraordinary and uncom- 
mon, that a history of them would fill a volume. After 
this man's death, it appeared that he was not himself, 
but somebody else ; and his true name being the same 
as that of a person I had met, many years before, at 
Wadi Haifa, or at Assouan, high up the Nile, made me 
suspect that these two persons were the same. One 
half of this character certainly died in a khan at Er- 
zeroom ; but as I do not know whether the other half 
is dead, or whether the two were really one or not, I 
must forbear the strange narration of their lives, for 
fear something might meet the eyes of their friends or 
relations-— if they had any— who, perhaps, may be 



1X4 ARMENIA. 



under the pleasing delusion that their respected rela- 
tive was an honor to their name, 

I must, however, relate a little anecdote of the 
Egyptian half of my acquaintance. At Assouan, be- 
low the Cataracts, I saw an extraordinary-looking boat, 
built of bits of hard wood, like iron- wood, each about 
two feet long, caulked or cemented in the seams with 
reeds and mud, precisely in the manner in which the 
ancient boats are represented in the hieroglyphics. 
This strange vessel was of large size, and was navi- 
gated by a crew of blacks, of a tribe with which I was 
not acquainted. The proprietor of the ship was dress- 
ed in a much worn and old-fashioned Turkish dress ; 
his cabin was carpeted with lion-skins; his cushions 
were the skins of some small deer, stuffed. He was 
very civil, and spoke in the French language to me, 
while he gave his orders to his servants in a dialect 
which bore little resemblance to Arabic, but which be- 
longed to some distant region of the interior of Africa, 
where he had been living many years. His personal 
servants were the handsomest negroes I had ever seen : 
though they were dressed as men, I found they were 
girls ; one, who was beautiful, was his wife. He was 
an interesting personage, and appeared on friendly 
terms with his black attendants, who looked forward 
with great glee to the wondrous sights which they 
were to see at Cairo. After listening to some curious 
stories of the manners and customs of the black na- 
tions of the interior, unknown to Europeans, he showed 
me three or four strongly-made iron-bound chests, 
which, on being opened, proved to be full of gold, to 
the amount of some thousands of pounds ; some was 



AFRICAN "DIGGINGS." £15 

in nuggets, but most part of it was in the form of 
rings the size of bracelets, and others the size of large 
heavy finger-rings, all of pure gold. These rings were 
passed as money, and were of the exact form of those 
used for the same purpose by the ancient Egyptians, 
and of the rings found in Celtic and British tombs. 
Independent of their intrinsic value, they were exceed- 
ingly curious ; and he said gold might be procured in 
great quantities in the mountains beyond Darfoor. 
Here, then, is an opening for some future diggings, and 
an object to promote discoveries in the centre of Afri- 
ca. My informant was a European, of the same na- 
tion and the same name as the person whom I met at 
Erzeroom, but I now doubt whether the two were or 
were not the same. Some time afterward I made in- 
quiries at Cairo about this singular adventurer, when 
I heard that he had sold his strange vessel, his wife, 
his servants, and his crew, to their astonishment and 
dismay, for they did not consider themselves as slaves, 
and he had taken his departure for Europe with his 
gold rings and the produce of the sale of his confiding 
family. 

It may not be generally known that Erzeroom is 
supposed be the site of the terrestrial paradise. The 
reason of this supposition is deduced from the fact of 
so many great and famous rivers taking their rise in 
this exalted region. 

About three hours from Erzeroom, passing the an- 
cient monastery of Kuzzul Yank, on the way to Tor- 
toom and Kars, a rocky top of a mountain rises about 
two thousand feet above the plain, and consequently 
about ten thousand feet above the level of the sea. 



116 



ARMENIA. 



Standing on one spot upon this mountain, the traveler 
can see the sources, heneath his feet, of the Euphrates, 
the Araxes, and the river which falls into the Black 
Sea in the pestilential neighborhood of Batoum; one 
river falling into the Persian Gulf, one into the Cas- 
pian, and one into the Black Sea. The traditions of 
the country relate that the flowers of paradise hloomed 
in luxuriant splendor in this now barren region till the 
days of Khosref Purveez. This mighty Persian mon- 
arch, " the Great King," was encamped upon the banks 
of the Euphrates, on the plains of Erzeroom, when a 
messenger arrived from the Prophet Mohammed, then 
an insignificant pretender, offering this magnificent 
sovereign protection if he would give up the religion 
of his fathers and embrace the faith of Islam. Khos- 
ref Purveez, in derision, threw the letter from the 
prophet into the waters of the river, when Nature, in 
dismay, withered all her trees and flowers, and the 
bounteous stream, which formerly bestowed wealth 
and abundance to the country on its shores, shrank 
into its bed, and, refusing to fertilize the earth, cold, 
and frost, and barrenness have been ever since the con- 
sequence of the impiety of the Persian king : not only 
this, but the days of his ancient empire were number- 
ed ; and in the days of Yesdijird, a few years after this 
event, the blacksmith's apron, the victorious standard 
of Persia, fell into the hands of the Mohammedan gen- 
eral, at the great battle of Kudseah, where the sun of 
Persia set to rise no more. 

Among the rocks, not far from Erzeroom, is an arti- 
ficial cavern, hewn out of the mountain side by Fer- 
had, the successful rival of Khosref in the affections of 



FLOWERS. 



117 



the beautiful Shireen. It was here — or others say at 
Beysittoon — that Ferhad threw himself from the prec- 
ipice on hearing the false intelligence that Shireen was 
dead ; and that famous beauty herself died on seeing 
the remains of the mighty Khosref, who had been mur- 
dered by his own son Schiroueh out of jealousy and 
love for her. 

From the tops of the mountains surrounding Erze- 
room the snowy summit of Mount Ararat can be seen 
— another monument in the history of the cradle of 
the human race, and at its feet the town of Nackche- 
van was built by Noah, on his descent from the ark. 
This was the first city built by man after the Flood, 
according to Armenian, and I think also Mohammed- 
an, tradition. 

Some slight remains of paradise are left, even to our 
days, in the form of the most lovely flowers, which I 
gathered on the very hill from whence the three rivers 
take their departure to their distant seas. Though one 
of them has a Latin scientific name, no plant of it has 
ever been in Europe, and by no manner of contrivance 
could we succeed in carrying one away. This most 
beautiful production was called in Turkish, Yedi kar- 
tash kane (Seven brothers' blood), in Latin, Ravanea, 
or Philipea coccinea, a parasite on absinthe, or worm- 
wood. This is the most beautiful flower conceivable : 
it is in the form of a lily, about nine to twelve inches 
long, including the stalk ; the flower and stalk, and 
all parts of it, resembling crimson velvet ; it has no 
leaves ; it is found on the sides of the mountains near 
Erzeroom, often in company with the Morena Orien- 
talis, a remarkable kind of thistle, with flowers all up 



HQ ARMENIA. 



the stalk, looking and smelling like the honeysuckle. 
Another heautiful flower found here has not been de- 
scribed. It grows among rocks, and has a tough car- 
roty root, two feet or more in length ; the leaves are 
long grassy filaments, forming a low bush, like a tus- 
sock of coarse grass ; under the leaves appear the flow- 
ers. Each plant has twelve or twenty of them (like 
large white-heart cherries on a stalk), in the form of a 
bunch of grapes, eight or ten inches long ; these flow- 
ers are merely colored bladders holding the seed. An 
iris, of a most brilliant flaming yellow, is found among 
the rocks, and it, as well as all the more remarkable 
flowers of this country, blooms in the spring soon after 
the melting of the snow — that is to say, about June. 

Pire otou, a herb, which is sold here in powder (An- 
themis rosea, aut carnea), instantly kills fleas and oth- 
er insects, and would be invaluable to travelers in warm 
climates. "We possessed a certain little dog called 
Fundook (a nut), who held the important position of 
turnspit in our kitchen: he was a wise dog, with a 
look of dignity about him like a dog in office, and one 
that had something on his mind and knew more than 
he would say. He turned out his elbows and turned 
in his toes, and sat at the door in a solemn attitude 
when not employed on the business of the nation. In 
the pursuit of his vocation he became sadly vexed with 
fleas, and his dignity suffered from the necessity of 
scratching with his hind leg, just like a common, vul- 
gar dog. Commiserating his condition, one of the 
grooms went to the expense of five paras (one farthing 
sterling), with which he purchased two good handfuls 
of powdered leaves of Pire otou, the effect of which 



A PARTY AT THE CAVE OF FERHAD. HQ 



was magical : in one minute every flea was dead, and 
Fundook swaggered into the kitchen quite a renovated 
dog. 

It may not be generally known that the tulip owes 
its origin to the blood of Ferhad, which was sprinkled 
on the ground when he threw himself from the rocks 
in despair, on hearing of the death of his glorious Shi- 
reen. In this story we see how one beautiful idea is 
copied and admired by mankind in the most distant 
regions, times, and circumstances, for this is the same 
tradition as that of the Anemone, which, in classic lore, 
arose from the blood of Adonis while Venus was weep- 
ing for his loss. 

Upon a day we gave a party at the cave of Ferhad ; 
this was a rare function ; parties were not common at 
Erzeroom. 

" When the Orient sun arose, and shed his golden 
beams o'er the snowy peaks of the mountains of the 
East, Apollo on that day must have reined in his steeds 
in wonder at the unwonted stir that was taking place 
at Erzeroom, as Aurora withdrew the purple veil of 
night from the features of fair mother Earth, refresh- 
ed with the slumbers she had enjoyed under the guard- 
ianship of Endymion. She of the rosy fingers doubt- 
less started up in beautiful surprise at the bustle and 
the activity displayed beneath her gaze. Phoebus, not 
resisting the pleasure of curiosity, gazed down in all his 
glory on the Armenian plain, where horses neighed, and 
cattle lowed, and hasty marmitons laded ox-eyed oxen 
with bright coppers from the kitchen shelves ; wains 
were there laden with wide tubs of cooling snow; 
cooks, in a perspiration, swore deep oaths ; the voice 



120 ARMENIA. 



official of Fundook was heard yelping and barking in 
the morning breeze, and under Sol's first rays a cara- 
van set forth in long, dark outline, winding o'er the 
plain of Erzeroom." For the rest, see Homer, unpub- 
lished edition, cap. x. 




Fundook. 



All the rank and fashion of the place were present ; 
the rank rode on horseback, the fashion followed in a 
cart drawn by four oxen — this would sound better if 
it were called an araba — and therein was contained 
all the beauty of the city of Erzeroom. The distance 
may have been ten miles ; some of the party got there 
in three quarters of an hour, and others arrived in an 
hour and three quarters. Among the distinguished 
guests were two philosophers, one of whom, having 
lately arrived in these unknown regions, was remark- 
able for the glorious colors of his waistcoat. This ef- 
fulgent garment having been admired, the answer was 
returned in the following mysterious sentence, as I 
well remember, in a language unknown, as far as my 
knowledge is experienced, in any nation upon earth: 
" Zest mon vamme, gui ma tonne ze chilet." Our ad- 



CAREFUL PACKING. 



121 



miration of the chilet gave way before the announce- 
ment that the carriage and four was approaching the 
cave, and all sallied forth to receive the lovely dam- 
sels that it bore. Through many a quag, o'er many a 
rock, and many a jolt had those oxen drawn the araba 
for many a weary hour before they lay down in front 
of our cave ; and now it was the happy lot of those 
who got there first to hand out of their carriage the 
admired beauties of Armenia. The carriage stopped, 
and we were in readiness, our feelings of politeness 
screwed up to the most perfect tone — 

When the pie was opened, 

The birds began to sing : 
"Wasn't that a dainty dish 

To set before a king 1 * 

But the birds did not come out — there was much to be 
done before that desired object was concluded : first, 
out came a cushion, then a feather-bed, and then a 
pretty girl ; then another cushion, then another lovely 
damsel ; then three or four more cushions, and another 
feather-bed, and then the prettiest little girl of all jump- 
ed upon the ground, half laughing and half smothered ; 
for such dainty goods would have broken all to bits on 
those rough roads, if they had not been packed so care- 
fully. The mother of the three graces accompanied 
them, and, the party being assembled, the great busi- 
ness of life commenced in earnest. Dolmas, and kie- 
ufte, and cabobs soon graced the board' — not that there 
was any board, but it sounds well. " Viands," that is, 
chickens, lamb stewed with quinces, and all manner 
of good things, appeared and disappeared, to the won- 
der of certain hungry Koords who happened to be pass- 

F 



122 



ARMENIA. 



ing, and who would have been run through with the 
spits, if not devoured by Fundook, our brave ally, if 
they had made a row. Corks from foreign bottles of 
champagne popped in brisk salute. Cooks and ka- 
wasses, grooms, arabagis, eiwasses, and heiwans fol- 
lowed the good example set them by their lords, and, 
" fruges consumere nati," did their best to follow the 
end of their creation. Then, and on that occasion only, 
did many a lantern-jawed, hook-nosed Koord imbibe the 
unknown potations of Frangistaun. Then, in glorious 
generosity, did the trusty marmiton dispense the bones 
of slaughtered lamb, drumsticks of fowl, and crust of 
pie, whereof repletion dire denied the power to partake. 
By staggering chiboukgis pipes were next produced, 
and fragrant coffee, served on salvers bright ; and, on 
soft Persian carpets now reclined, the party enjoyed 
the scene before them, passing an agreeable afternoon 
in each other's society, accompanied, I thought, with 
some little flirtations between some of the company, 
which, I suspect, left pleasing recollections on their 
minds ; for though I can not boast that any thing came 
of it that day, yet not long afterward two marriages 
were declared between some of those who assisted at 
the dinner in the cave of Ferhad ; and the most anxious 
chaperon will acknowledge that that was as much as 
could be expected under the circumstances, seeing that 
there were but two unmarried ladies of the company. 
Afterward I found among my papers the following 
doleful ditty, purporting to be a translation of Hafiz, 
on the fertile Persian subject of Ferhad and Shireen ; 
and as the reader is not obliged to read it unless he 
likes to do so, I subjoin it in memory of the day that I. 



TRANSLATION FROM H A F I Z. 



123 



for my part, passed so pleasantly with many agreeable 
companions in this unfrequented spot. The accompa- 
niment to the air having been kindly undertaken by 
Fundook, the minstrel thus begins : 

Hafiz, who pass'd his sunny hours 

By the sweet stream of Mosellay, 
Singing of vineyards and of flowers 

To pass the fleeting time away, 

Tells how the blood of Ferhad's wound 
Had stain'd fair Nature's mantle green, 

Sprinkling with ruddy spots the ground 
Before the feet of fair Shireen. 

The tulip from his blood arose 

Beside her path in that sad hour. 
Displaying how its leaves inclose 

A goblet in each opening flower * 

Then to the lips the goblet press, 
Whose rim contains forgetfulness. 



The vine, the glorious vine, arose, 
Unscathed by crime, unchanged by woes, 

Exulting in her charms ; 
Waving her tendrils in the breeze, 
And clasping the rough, rugged trees 

In her encircling arms. 

With clustering grapes upon her brow, 
Still as she binds each willing bough 

Their welcome aid she gains ; 
On them she leans, but they confess 
The power of her loveliness, 
And glory in their chains. 

Fill up the bright and sparkling bowl, 
That cures the body, heals the soul. 

No — be it not refused — 
Hail to the vine ! whose purple juice 
Was sent on earth for mortals' use, 

But not to be abused. 



124 



ARMENIA. 



Still to the lips the goblet press, 
Whose rim contains forgetfulness. 

Forgetfulness, alas ! 'tis this 

That mortals hold the height of bliss 

In this sad world of care ; 
For Memory through life retains 
A catalogue of griefs and pains, 

But little else is there. 

Then to the lips the goblet press, 

Whose rim contains forgetfulness. — Hafiz. 



THE BEAR. ^25 



CHAPTER IX. 

The Bear. — Ruins of a Genoese Castle. — Lynx. — Lemming. — Cara 
Guz. — Gerboa. — Wolves. — Wild Sheep. — A hunting Adventure. — 
Camels. — Peculiar Method of Feeding. — Degeneration of domestic 
Animals. 

Of four-footed beasts, the most illustrious is the bear, 
of which there are a good many in the wooded sides 
of the mountains in the neighborhood of Kars. Near 
the strange, unearthly lake of Tortoom, I saw the fresh 
footprint of a real Ursa Major — a thundering old bear 
he must have been. He had only just departed, and 
the mark of one of his paws was large enough to hold 
more than both of mine. In another place I came 
upon the ruins of one of the string of Genoese castles 
which, in former days, reared up their lordly towers at 
distances of not more than eight or ten hours apart the 
whole way from Trebizohd to Teflis. Their splendid 
ruins have been my admiration on many an imposing 
rock, frowning over an unknown valley. Even the 
names of most of these are lost, while we only know 
of the history of their founders that once upon a time 
there were such merchant princes. In the bottom of 
a broken turret a bear had taken lodgings, but he was 
not at home when I called. Others, not far off, on an- 
other hill, had given a small party, and had been amus- 
ing themselves by rolling about a piece of rock about 
five feet in diameter — a game of roulette, on a large 
scale, which showed their wondrous strength. The 



12Q ARMENIA. 



mud from their paws upon the stone was wet when I 
came up to join the party, but, perhaps luckily for me, 
they declined the honor of my acquaintance, and the 
society had broken up. Some sturdy peasants of La- 
zistaun, hearing of my partiality for strange creatures, 
brought me two young bears one day, who lived in our 
house for some time. They were very sensible, the 
she bear keeping her brother in remarkable order. 
They became very tame. They were, in some re- 
spects, different from the European bear, and of a light 
cinnamon color. I sent them to England. They were 
great favorites with the sailors on board ship, and ar- 
rived safely at the Tower Stairs, when some white 
paint being left out for the beautification of the vessel, 
the poor bears ate it all up, and not only died of the 
unwholesome feast, but the poison was so strong as to 
bring the fur off their skins, so that they could not be 
stuffed and immortalized in a glass case. 

After the bear the next animal is the lynx, the fur 
of whose belly is of the highest value in Turkey, while 
that of the back is worth very much less. These ani- 
mals are not rare in Armenia, and Enveri Effendi 
prided himself on a splendid robe of this valuable fur, 
which he paid for by selling the skins of the backs of 
the lynxes at Constantinople for more than he had 
given for the precious under-far at Erzeroom. The 
lynx is famed for the quickness of his sight, but En- 
veri Effendi had a sharper eye than he in all affairs 
relating to his own -benefit. 

In the spring of the year, soon after the women and 
children, the lemmings come out, and sit upon their 
hind legs, and wipe their eyes with their fore-paws, and 



CAR A GUZ. 127 



seem to wonder quietly at those who pass by, taking a 
header, or summerset, down their holes if you stop sud- 
denly to look at these curious little beasts. 

A soft, cozy, fat little quadruped, called cara guz 
(black eyes), about the size of a young Gruinea-pig, and 
much of the same shape — only his color is gray, and 
he has a most wonderfully soft coat — comes out, too, 
about this time. He is so fat that he can not walk 
very fast, and is easily taken, and in his captivity pre- 
fers almonds and raisins to any other bill of fare which 
I was able to put before him. This little fellow eats 
his breakfast, luncheon, dinner, and supper slowly and 
respectably, without testifying any alarm for mankind. 
I could not make out his scientific name ; he is prob- 
ably some kind of little marmotte, and he falls readily 
into the manners and habits of the society in which 
Providence has placed him. 

After cara guz, the gerboa comes out of his hole, and 
hops about on his long tail and hind legs ; a miniature 
kangaroo, in whose acquaintance I have rejoiced in the 
burning deserts of Africa as well as in the frozen re- 
gions of the highlands of Erzeroom. In this country 
the number of quadrupeds is very limited ; the fox is 
occasionally seen, as well as the gray beaver (kondooz), 
badgers, and wolves. At the melting of the snow the 
wolves come even into the towns, and devour the dogs 
with which every town is amply supplied. There are 
awful stories of their carrying off the little, peeping, 
blear-eyed children, who creep out of their holes in the 
beginning of spring, and who are occasionally washed 
away in the torrents of melted snow — the only wash- 
ing attended to hereabouts. Wolves are not very un- 



J2Q ARMENIA. 



frequently started out of the inside of one of the numer- 
ous dead horses, whose overworked bodies have been 
frozen into the consistency of flint during the winter, 
and which form savory banquets for the famished 
wolves when the snow and ice recede, and display these 
dainty morsels to their haggard eyes. 

The wild sheep frequent the inaccessible rocks of 
the lower mountains, where a scanty herbage may be 
browsed beneath the line of perpetual snow. No two 
animals can be more different, both in appearance and 
habits, than the wild and tame sheep. The wild sheep 
of Armenia (Ovis gemelii) is in size, shape, and color 
like the doe of the fallow-deer, only it has two short 
horns bending backward, like those of a goat. The 
strength and agility of this most nimble creature are 
astonishing ; they are more difficult of approach than 
the chamois of the Alps. I have usually seen them in 
pairs, but was never able to get a shot. I brought 
three skins and several heads of this rare animal to 
Europe, out of which one stuffed specimen was made 
up in the British Museum; it is, I believe, the only 
one extant. The method employed to hunt this sheep 
is to climb to the highest summit of a mountain, and 
then, cautiously approaching the edges of the cliffs, to 
peep down with a telescope into the gorges and ravines 
below, where, if you have luck, you may see the sheep 
capering about on the ledges of the precipice, jumping, 
standing on a stone on their hind legs to reach a little 
tuft of herbage, and playing the most curious antics, 
for no perceptible reason, unless it is that they find 
their digestion improved by taking a considerable deal 
of exercise. In these gymnastics the hunter must par- 



A HUNTING ADVENTURE. ^29 

ticipate to a great extent in following the tracks of the 
jumpingest creatures (excepting fleas) that he can ever 
have to deal with. It requires much activity, and a 
good head for looking over a height, to attempt to come 
up with them, and many a sad accident has occurred 
to the adventurous sportsman in this pursuit. I my- 
self have been in some awkward situations : once par- 
ticularly, having let myself down by the roots of a kind 
of juniper on the ledge of a tremendous precipice, I 
found there was no way further down, and, what was 
of more consequence, no way up again, for the roots 
of the stunted tree were above my reach. A hunter — 
a Laz, or a native of Lazistaun- — was with me, and 
when we had done watching the two sheep scamper- 
ing off out of shot below, we looked at the place we 
were on, and then in each other's faces in blank dis- 
may. We were in the same scrape as the Emperor 
Maximilian got into in the Tyrol, near .... only 
there being no angels about in the mountains of La- 
zistaun, we had no expectation of being assisted by a 
spirited or a spiritual goatherd, as he was. After a 
good deal of pantomime, which would have puzzled 
any bird who might be wondering at our maneuvers 
— for we did not understand each other's language — 
we took off our boots, all our outer clothes, and our 
arms and rifles, and tied them in a bundle ; then I 
planted myself firmly, with my face to the wall of the 
cliff, sticking my rifle into a crevice to give me more 
steadiness, and the hunter climbed carefully up my 
back on to my shoulders till he got hold of the roots of 
the tree ; the tree shook, and plenty of stones and dirt 
fell upon my head, while the hunter scrambled into 

F2 



130 ARMENIA. 



the trunk, and he was safe. He sat down a while to 
rest, and then hauled up the clothes and guns with our 
shawls that we had taken off from round our waists ; 
a gentle qualm came over me at this moment, for fear 
he should be off with my, to him, very valuable spoils, 
and leave me in peace upon the shelf. But he was a 
true man, as a hunter generally is ; so, after a variety 
of signs and gesticulations to each other as to how it 
was to be done, he lugged me up, first by the shawls, 
and then by hand, until I could reach the roots of the 
tree. Here there was only room for one, so he climb- 
ed higher, and, after some wonderful positions, strug- 
gles, kicks, and scrambling, I got back among the roots, 
then up the trunk of the old gnarled juniper, or what- 
ever it was, and at last upon a slope, partaking much 
of that character which, in the states of the free and 
independent slave-dealers over the water, is called slant- 
indicular. Here we both lay down. As for me, I was 
quite faint with giddiness and hard kicking, with noth- 
ing under me to kick at ; but soon we picked up our 
effects, put on our boots, &c, scrambled, slid, and climb- 
ed about again after some more sheep ; but, by reason 
of their having two pair of legs each, and each pair 
better adapted to present circumstances than our one 
pair each, they always got away, and we came down 
the mountain muttonless and hungry for that day, not 
sorry to find a famous good supper in the tent, in our 
encampment by the trout stream, in the Valley of 
Tortoom. 

One more quadruped nearly concludes the short cat- 
alogue of the mammalia of Erzeroom — the Capricorn, 
many specimens of whose enormous horns are nailed 



DEGENERATION OF ANIMALS. i^l 

up over the doors of houses in the city ; but I never 
saw this last animal at Erzeroom, alive or dead. 

Innumerable camels accompany the caravans from 
hence to Persia, looking very much out of place in the 
deep snow. They are the Arabian camel with one 
hump, and I had no notion that my old acquaintance 
of Arabia could bear the tremendous cold of Erzeroom. 
Great quantities of corn and meal are brought here 
from the more prolific countries of the neighborhood. 
This is the staple merchandise of the city, which is the 
only place on the road between Persia and Turkey 
where caravans can recruit their thousands of jaded 
horses, and procure provisions for their journey. In 
this consists the political importance of an otherwise 
worthless and infertile spot. The number of camels, 
horses, mules, and beasts of burden assembled some- 
times at Erzeroom is immense, and they have here a 
peculiar method of feeding the camels by opening their 
mouths with the left hand, and with the other shoving 
down the poor beast's throat a ball of dough about the 
size of a cricket ball. 

One peculiarity of the domestic animals in this fear- 
ful climate is, that they are dwarfed and dwindled in 
size to an extraordinary degree. A bull used to run 
about the lower regions of my house, which was bare- 
ly eighteen inches high ; the sheep were so small that 
grown up mutton looked like lamb. The same occur- 
red with fruit ; none at all grew at Erzeroom, but we 
had from villages some miles off, on the edges of the 
plain, plums the size of damsons, apricots the size of 
walnuts, and other fruits in proportion. 



122 ARMENIA. 



CHAPTER X. 

Birds. — Great Variety and vast Numbers of Birds. — Flocks of Geese. 
— Employment for the Sportsman. — The Captive Crane. — Wild 
and tame Geese. — The pious and profane Ancestors. — List of Birds 
found at Erzeroom. 

I now enter upon a subject to which I fear I have 
neither time nor power to do justice. The number of 
various kinds of birds which breed on the great plain 
of Erzeroom is so prodigious as to be almost incredible 
to those who have not seen them, as I often have, cov- 
ering the -earth for miles and miles so completely that 
the color of the ground could not be seen ; particularly 
at one period, when the whole country had a rosy ap- 
pearance, from the countless flocks of a sort of red 
goose, which I take to be the ruddy sheldrake — a 
splendid bird, though not good to eat. It is about the 
size of a small goose or a Muscovy duck, almost en- 
tirely clothed in various shades of red. Troops of the 
two varieties of the wild gray goose form whitish spots 
in the animated landscape, their wild cries and noises 
sounding in every direction. So closely covered was 
the plain with this prodigious multitude of every kind 
of wild fowl, that I have galloped among them for some 
distance, the birds getting up about one hundred yards 
in a circle round my horse, and settling again behind 
me with loud cries, while the air rustled with the beat- 
ing of innumerable wings of those birds which had 
been disturbed by my approach. The sportsman may 
imagine what shooting there is at Erzeroom, for when 



GREAT VARIETY OF BIRDS. 133 

one genus has reared its young and flown away to far 
and distant lands, another takes its place. Quails are 
at one time almost as thick as flies ; and numerous vari- 
eties of small birds, among which the horned lark and 
the red-winged finch flew in clouds. That beautiful 
variety, the rosy starling, has been often shot, as well 
as the merops, and so many other little fowls of varied 
plumage, that I must refer the reader to the accom- 
panying list, for it would fill a book to give even a 
slight description of them all. On the banks of the 
river I used to shoot all sorts of waders, particularly 
spoonbills, and that most delicate of birds, the egret 
or white heron, famous for its plumes. I must own to 
being a bad shot, having been more accustomed to the 
rifle, but these white herons afforded me great prac- 
tice ; as they flapped along, I shot numbers of them, as 
well as many and many a quaint fellow with long legs, 
whom I brought home merely to make out who he 
was, and to write down his name. Later in the year 
I risked my neck by riding as hard as I could tear 
over the rocky, or rather stony, plains at the foot of the 
mountains after the great bustard. I have more than 
once knocked some of the feathers out of these glori- 
ous huge birds, as they ran at a terrible pace, half fly- 
ing and scrambling before my straining horse, but I 
never succeeded in killing one, though I have constant- 
ly partaken of those which had fallen before more pa- 
tient gunners, who stalk them as you would a deer, 
and knock them over with a rifle or swan-shot from 
behind a stone or bank. 

I had more success with the great cinereous crane, 
which runs much faster than a horse. I shot one at 



234 ARMENIA. 



full gallop with a rifle, in a place overgrown with reeds. 
This was a mighty triumph, for, though my game was 
about five feet high, he was so very long in the legs 
and neck, that the body offered but a small mark to 
be brought down under such circumstances, and the 
pace he was going at the time, and I after him, was, 
as they say, " a caution. 5 ' This is a bird with whom it 
is requisite to be wary : if he is down, and not killed 
outright, like the heron and the stork he makes a dart 
with his sharp, long bill at the eyes of his enemy, and 
its strength is such that it might easily, I should think, 
penetrate the brain ; at any rate, the eye would be 
picked out at once, and that would suffice for that 
time. 

A man brought in a crane which he had winged, 
and we turned him out into the yard with the poul- 
try, where he stalked up and down with a proud, in- 
dignant air. He soon became pretty quiet, and ate 
his corn with the rest, while he had a deep bucket of 
water for his own use, into which he used to poke his 
head continually. One day a stupid, heavy servant 
went into the yard, and, not knowing that the bucket 
was placed there for the stork, he took it up to carry 
it away, when the bird flew at him and pecked at his 
face, but, missing his eye, seized him tightly by the 
nose, and there he held him for a good while. The 
poor man halloed loud enough, but those who came to 
his assistance could not help him at first for laughing ; 
and though he kept beating at the crane with the 
bucket, which he held in his hand, his long neck en- 
abled him to keep so far off that he escaped all the 
frantic attempts of his prisoner to reach him. The 



THE LESSER BUSTARD. ^35 

man's nose was swelled and very sore for some time, 
and he never got over the ridicule which attached to 
him for his perilous adventure with the crane. It was 
touching to watch this crane : when the time for its 
emigration arrived, a flock of its magnificent compan- 
ions every day used to fly high up in the air, in a 
wheeling circle, above its head. This circle of flying 
birds has a very striking effect. The cranes above 
called to their friend to join them for their distant 
journey to a happier climate, and the poor helpless 
crane below, stretching its long neck up toward the 
sky, answered the appeal in a singularly mournful 
cry. 

Various kinds of partridge exist, and the lesser bus- 
tard, called, in Turkish, Mesmeldek, is an excellent 
bird for the table. They have a curious method of 
catching the mesmeldek in some of the steppes in 
Southern Russia. At the commencement of winter, 
parties of horsemen gallop out upon the plains before 
sunrise, at which hour the wings of these birds are 
frozen to their sides, and, the hunters stretching out 
their horses in a line, the birds are driven by them into 
the villages, and secured, before the warmth of the sun 
releases their wings and restores their powers of flight. 
Great flocks of the lesser bustard have been driven in 
this manner occasionally into Odessa. Hawks and 
stately falcons hover over head, and prey upon their 
defenseless brethren at their ease. 

Storks build upon the chimneys; and among the 
sticks of which their huge nest is formed, the sparrows 
make their nests, stealing, when they can, any food, 
which the old birds bring for their young. 



236 ARMENIA. 



Here, as in all other parts of the world, this imperti- 
nent race of little birds dispute possession of the house 
with mice and other intruders ; but at Erzeroom they 
are hardly put to it sometimes for want of twigs to 
perch upon, and they sit usually, instead, upon the iron 
bars of the windows in the town. Here I have often 
watched them chirping in the cold, as they sat by the 
dozen on the bars of my window, dressing their featta. 
ers, and jabbering to each other, like true Koordish 
sparrows, about the corn that they stole from my 
chickens yesterday, and how, with case-hardened con- 
sciences, they intend to steal as much more as they 
can get to-day. 

This is a subject on which I could dilate to any 
length, but at present I must conclude with the fol- 
lowing list of the various tribes of birds who, in thou- 
sands and millions, would reward the toil of the sports- 
man and the naturalist on the plains and mountains 
of the high lands of Armenia ; merely adding to this 
brief notice of the birds of this country the following 
veracious anecdote, as perhaps hitherto naturalists may 
not all of them be aware of the origin of the separation 
of the wild and tame goose : 

In former days, two geese agreed to take a long 
journey together : the evening before they were to set 
out, one said to the other, " Mind you are ready, my 
friend, for, Inshallah, I will set out to-morrow morn- 
ing !" " And so will I," replied he, " whether it pleases 
Grod or not!" The sun rose the next day, and the 
pious goose, having ate his breakfast, and quenched 
his thirst in the waters of the stream, rose lightly on 
the wing, and soared away to a distant land. The 



LIST OF BIRDS. 237 

impious bird also prepared to follow him; but, after 
hopping and fluttering for a long while, he found him- 
self totally unable to rise from the ground ; and his 
evolutions having been observed by a fowler who hap- 
pened to be passing that way, he was presently caught, 
and reduced to servitude, in which his race have ever 
since continued, while the descendants of the religious 
goose still enjoy that freedom in which they were orig- 
inally created. 

LIST OF BIRDS FOUND AT ERZEROOM. 
Raptores (Birds of Prey). 

Vultur fulvus Fulvous vulture. 

Aquila fulvus Fulvous eagle. 

Aquila Eagle. 

Accipiter fringillarius Sparrow-hawk. * 

Falco tinnunculus Kestril. 

" osalon Hobby. 

" subbuteo Merlin. 

" rufipes Orange-legged hobby. 

" peregrinus Peregrine falcon. 

" peregrinus Falcon. 

Milvus ater Common kite. 

Buteo ater (1) Common buzzard (1). 

" ater Marsh buzzard. 

Circus pallidus White hen harrier. 

" rufus Marsh hen harrier. 

Noctua Indica Small Indian owl. 

Strix Indica Another owl. 

Insepores (or Perchers). 
Deutirostres. 

Lanius excubitor Great strike (or butcher-bird). 

" collurio Red-backed strike. 

Collurio minor Small strike. 

Musicapa grisola Spotted fly-catcher. 

" luctuosa Pied fly-catcher. 



138 ARMENIA. 



Turdus merula Blackbird. 

" torquatus Ring-ouzel. 

" pilaris Fieldfare. 

'*' musicus Song-thrush. 

Petrocinela saxatilis Rock-thrush. 

Cinclus aquaticus Water-ouzel (or dipper). 

Oriolus galbula Golden oriole. 

Motacilla alba White wagtail. 

" flava Yellow wagtail. 

Saxicola rubicola Stonechat. 

" rubetra Whinchat. 

" senanthe Wheatear. 

Sylvia trochilus Willow wren. 

" hippolais Willow wren. 

Salicaria phragmitis Sedge-warbler. 

cetti (?) Sedge-warbler (?). 

Curruca cineria Whitethroat. 

" atricapilla Blackcap. 

Phcenicura ruticilla Redstart. 

" tilkys Black redstart. 

" succica Bluebreast. 

Erythaca rubecula Redbreast. 

Troglodytes Europseus Wren. 

Rudytes melanocephala Wren. 

Anthus arboreus Tree-pipit. 

" pratensis Pipit-lark. 

" rufescens Pipit-pipit. 

Fissirostres. 

Hirundo riparia Saced martin. 

" rustica Swallow. 

Cypselus murarius Swift. 

Caprimulgus Europseus Goat-sucker* 

Conirostres. 

Alanda arvensis Skylark. 

" arborea Woodlark. 

" calandra Calandre. 

" brachydactila Little lark. 



LIST OF BIRDS. ^39 

Alanda penicillata Horned lark. 

" rupestris Rock lark. 

" rupestris (1) (An Albino variety). 

" rupestris Albino lark. 

Parus major Great titmouse. 

" cosruleus Blue titmouse. 

Emberiza citrinella Yellow-hammer. 

" hortulana Ortolan. 

" miliaria Common bunting. 

" cia Meadow bunting. 

Fringilla coelebs Chaffinch. 

" montefrengilla Mountain-finch (or brambling). 

" nivalis (?) Snow-finch ('!). 

" sanguinea Bloody-finch. 

Pyrgita domestica House-sparrow. 

" petronea Stone-sparrow. 

Carduelis communis Goldfinch. 

Pyrrhula communis (?) (A variety of the bullfinch). 

Linaria montuim Mountain linnet (or twite). 

" cannabina Greater redpole. 

Coccothraustes chloris Greenfinch. 

" vulgaris .... .Hawfinch. 

Loxia curvirostra *■/■ ■ Crossbill. 

Stumus vulgaris Common starling. 

Pastor roseus Rosy-pastor. 

Corvus modedula Jackdaw. 

" frugeleus Rook. 

" cornix Hooded or Royston crow. 

Pica candata Magpie. 

Garrulus melanocephalus . . . . Black-headed jay. 
Coracias garrula Roller. 

Tenuirostres. 

Upupa epops Hoopoe. 

Merops apiaster Bee-eater. 

Alcedo ispida Kingfisher. 

ScANSORES (OR CLIMBERS). 

Yuux torquilla Wryneck. 



140 ARMENIA. 



Cuculus canorus Cuckoo. 

Cuculus (?) Cuckoo. 

Rasores (Gallinaceous Birds). 

Otis tarda Great bustard. 

" tetrax Small bustard. 

Pterocles arenarius Sand-grouse. 

Perdix saxatilis Red or Greek partridge. 

" cineria Gray or English partridge. 

Coternix vulgaris Quail. 

Columba senos Stock-dove. 

" turtur (?) Turtle-dove (1). 

Grall^ (or Waders). 

Charadrius mormelles Dotterel. 

" minor Small ring-plover. 

" minor Large ring-plover. 

^Edienenuus crepitans Stone-curlew. 

" crepitans Stone-curlew. 

Yanellus cristatus Crested lapwing. 

" keptuschka. Crested lapwing. 

" keptuschka Crested lapwing. 

Grus cineria Gray crane. 

Ardea alba White heron. 

" cineria Gray heron (two sorts very 

" cineria Night heron. [large). 

" cineria Black heron. 

" cineria Black and gray heron. 

Botaurus stellaris Bittern. 

Nycticorax Europseus Night heron. 

Ciconia alba White stork. 

Platolea leucorodia White spoonbill. 

Scolopax rusticola Woodcock. 

" major Double snipe. 

Gallinago media Common snipe. 

" minima Jack-snipe. 

Ibis falcinellus Marone ibis. 

" falcinellus (1) Marone ibis. 

Limosa melanolensa 



LIST OF BIRDS. \/\\ 



Tringa subaiquata Curlew tringa. 

" minuta Small tringa. 

" variabilis Changeable tringa. 

" pugnax RufF and reve. 

" pugnax Ruff and tringa. 

Totanus hypolencos Common sandpiper. 

" ochropus Green sandpiper. 

" glotis Green shankpiper. 

" calidris Red shankpiper. 

Himantopus melanopterus . . . Stilts. 

Rallus crec Corn-crake. 

" crec Corn-rail. 

" crec Corn-rail. 

Zapornia pusilla Corn-rail. 

Fulica atra Coot. 

Gallinula chloropus Water-hen. 

Glareola limbata Pratin cole. 

" torquata Austrian cole. „ 

Palmipedes (Web-footed Birds). 

Podiceps cristatus Crested grebe. 

" rubricollis Red-necked grebe. 

" auritus Eared grebe. 

Larus ridibundus Laughing gull. 

" argentatus (?) Herring gull (1). 

Sterna hirundo Common tern. 

" leucoptera Common tern. 

" nigra Black tern. 

Pelicanus onocrotalus Pelican. 

Carbo cormoranus Cormorant. 

Anas boschas Wild duck. 

" boschas Wild duck. 

Cygnus ferus Wild swan. 

Anser ferus Gray-leg goose. 

" albifrons White-fronted goose. 

Fuligula rufina Red-headed pochard. 

" rufina Common pochard. 

" cristata Tufted duck. 

Querquedula cinerea Summer teal. 



242 ARMENIA. 

Querquedula crecca Common teal. 

Dafila caudacuta Pintail duck. 

Chaulelosmus strepera Gadwall. 

Rynchapsis clypeata Black-headed shoveler. 

Tadorna rutila Ruddy sheldrake. 

" vulpanser Common sheldrake. 

Mergus albellus Smew. 

For this list of birds I am indebted to the kindness 
of my friend Mr. Calvert, of Erzeroom, to whom I take 
this opportunity of expressing my best thanks for a 
communication so interesting to lovers of natural his- 
tory. 




Ruined Toweb in the Castle of Tortoom, built by the Genoese, or 
perhaps by the knights templars. 



EXCURSIONS. 



145 



CHAPTER XL 

Excursion to the Lake of Tortoom. — Romantic Bridge. — Gloomy- 
Effect of the Lake. — Singular Boat. — " Evaporation" of a Pistol. — 
Kiamili Pasha. — Extraordinary Marksman. — Alarming Illness of the 
Author. — An Earthquake. — Lives lost through intense Cold. — The 
Author recovers. 

Between the days of arrival and departure of the 
tatars, or couriers, to Constantinople, and the struggles 
to keep the peace and explain the simplest transaction 
with our colleagues, we found time for various expedi- 
tions to the neighboring countries on all sides. The 
most remarkable of these was that to the deep, un- 
fathomable lake of Tortoom, about three days' journey 
off. Our main object in going there was to fish, and 
we encamped for that purpose on the upper streams of 
the Batoum River and other places. In the valley of 
the castle of Tortoom the trout abounded, and were 
of that unsophisticated nature that, fishing one hour 
in the dawn and one hour before sunset with two fly- 
rods, we caught every day enough to feed our camp, 
and to send a horse-load (no small quantity) in the 
evening to our friends at Erzeroom. This was one 
day's march, and the horses, traveling all night, brought 
the fish, though in the hot weather, in great perfection 
to the city in the cool of the morning. We were not 
aware, till it was too late, of the deadly nature of the 
malaria in these rocky valleys, where the precipice 
shot up clear and straight to the height, sometimes, we 

Gr 



146 ARMENIA. 



used to judge, of above a thousand feet. On our way 
through one of these romantic dells, we all rode, bag 
and baggage, over a bridge, to be compared only to the 
bridge of Al Serat, over which the souls of the judged 
will have to pass from the Temple of Jerusalem, over 
the Yalley of Jehoshaphat, till they reach the other 
world, which bridge is as narrow as the edge of the 
cimeter of Mohammed. The fright I was in is not 
to be described when I saw the first horseman, who 
was at the time filling his pipe, walk his horse uncon- 
cernedly over this bridge, which was composed of two 
pine-trees thrown over a torrent which roared and 
tumbled thirty feet below. However, being afraid to 
show I was afraid, I rode over too, and certainly thought 
myself a bold fellow when I got safe to the other side. 
To ride safely over such a bridge, a horse ought to be 
brought up to practice on a tight-rope. I would not 
attempt to walk over such a place nowadays in En- 
gland. 

We passed a village in one lovely valley, in a grove 
of peach-trees, where we found that every soul, or 
rather every body, was dead ; only one man survived 
the fever which had killed the rest. 

Of all the strange and gloomy scenes that I have 
witnessed, none have left a deeper impression on my 
mind than that of the black, unfathomable lake of 
Tortoom. Mountains of dark rock fall sheer down in 
awful precipices right into these deep, still waters on 
each side. No fish are to be found in this Dead Sea, 
though perhaps they may retreat there in the winter 
from the mountain rills. If the lake was a strange 
place, the boat which we discovered on the shore was 




Boat on the Lake of Tortoom. 



EXTRAORDINARY SHOOTING. ^49 

in character with the scene. It was the only vessel 
on its waters, and its builder probably never studied 
naval architecture in the dock -yards of the maritime 
powers. It was formed out of the trunks of two trees ; 
but as no description would so well convey a notion 
of its form, I refer the curious to the accompanying 
sketch. The standing figure in it represents a valor- 
ous kawass, who fired his pistol in the air for the sake 
of the echo, and, on the smoke clearing off, he found 
that the entire pistol had. evaporated too ; nothing visi- 
ble remained in his hand ; it had burst all to pieces. 
But, fortunately, neither he nor any of the party were 
hurt by the fragments, which fell into the waters of the 
dark and silent lake. 

October 1, 1843. This day I was riding on the 
road toward Bayazeed and Persia. Hearing some 
shots, I turned toward the hills lying between the town 
of Erzeroom and the mountains, and there I saw two 
or three tents pitched, and a number of officers, serv- 
ants, and people attending on Kiamili Pasha, who was 
shooting at a mark with a pistol. 

He is the most wonderful shot I ever heard of : he 
always fired at a distance of about 250 paces, or yards. 
Any one who will take the trouble to step this distance 
in a field or park will see how far it is to shoot with a 
rifle, and how entirely out of all usual calculations in 
pistol practice. I went into the Pasha's tent. He re- 
ceived me, as usual, with great kindness, and, after 
pipes and coffee, I begged him to go on with his shoot- 
ing. The way he set about it was this : he sat on one 
of the low, square rush-bottomed stools which are al- 
ways found in Turkish coffee-houses, but which must 



150 ARMENIA. 



have been brought from Constantinople probably by 
the Pasha, as those kind of stools are not usually met 
with in Erzeroom. He did not rest his elbow on his 
knee, but pressed it steadily against his side, took a 
deliberate but not very slow aim, and sent the ball 
through a brown pottery vase filled with water, about 
fifteen inches high, which stood on the other side of a 
valley, on a level with the tent, and full 250 yards off. 
I think the Pasha broke two while I sat with him, and 
made a hole which let the water out of another. His 
pistols were a pair of very slightly rifled dueling-pis- 
tols, about nine inches in the barrel, made by Egg, 
Great Greorge Street, London. I was so much aston- 
ished at the Pasha's shooting, that I asked him to give 
me one of the pieces of the vase, which I took home 
with me, and talked to my friends about it. I felt 
perfectly well when we went to dinner, when sudden- 
ly it appeared to me that what I was eating was burn- 
ing hot, and had a strange, odd taste. I believe I got 
up and staggered across the room, but here my senses 
failed me, and I remained insensible for twenty-seven 
days. An attack of brain fever had come upon me 
like a blow, as sudden and overwhelming as a flash of 
lightning. 

On the 27th of October I awoke in the morning, 
but, as I suppose, went to sleep for a while ; in the 
afternoon I fairly came to my senses, and saw my 
servant sitting on the scarlet-cloth divan under the 
window looking at me. I felt something strange, and 
still, and gloomy in the air, and was rather bewildered 
with the sensation. This was soon to be accounted 
for : the servant, seeing that I was alive, came forward 



AN EARTHQUAKE. 151 

toward the bed, while a low rumbling noise made it- 
self heard. This noise became louder ; flakes of plas- 
ter fell from the ceiling ; the room trembled, and was 
filled with a fine dust, with which I was nearly choked. 
My man exclaimed, " The earth moves — are you not 
afraid ?" As he spoke, the noise which we had heard 
increased, and an immense beam, made of the trunk 
of a whole tree, which was immediately above my bed, 
split with a report like a cannon. The earthquake 
shook the house terribly ; it creaked and trembled like 
a ship in a heavy gale of wind ; the noise increased to 
a roar, not like thunder, but howling and bellowing, 
with a low rumbling sound, while the air was as still 
as if Nature was paralyzed with dread ; every now and 
then a tremendous crash gave notice of a falling house. 
The one opposite our house, belonging to a poor widow, 
was entirely destroyed ; and, in the midst of a most 
fearful uproar, the two rooms, one on each side of my 
bed -room, fell in, while the air was darkened altogeth- 
er, as in an eclipse, with clouds of dust. So great was 
the noise of the earthquake all around, that neither my 
attendant nor I distinguished the particular crash when 
the two rooms adjoining us fell in. Some of the min- 
arets, and many of the houses of the city, were demol- 
ished ; parts of the ancient castellated walls fell down. 
The top of one of the two beautiful minarets of the old 
medresse, the glory of Erzeroom, called usually Eki 
Chifteh, disappeared. Those who were out, and able 
to witness the devastation, and to hear the awful roar- 
ing noise, said they had never seen or heard any thing 
more tremendous than the scene before their eyes. It 
is difficult to express in words the strange, awful sen- 



X52 ARMENIA, 



sation produced by the seeming impossible contradic- 
tion of a dead stillness in the midst of the crash of fall- 
ing buildings, the sullen, low bellowing, which perhaps 
sounded from beneath the ground, and the tremendous 
uproar that arose on all sides during the earthquake. 
I have not met with an account of this strange phe- 
nomenon in the descriptions of other earthquakes, and 
do not know whether it is a usual accompaniment to 
these terrible convulsions of nature. 

The earthquake accomplished its mission: in the 
midst of terror and destruction, it restored one poor 
creature to life. I regained my senses and my facul- 
ties on the 27th, as suddenly as I had lost them on the 
1st day of this month. Grod give me grace to make a 
good use of the life which was restored to me under 
such awful circumstances ! 

On that day the doctor, who had some difficulty in 
getting to my room through the ruins of the ante-room, 
took the ice off my head, and in a few days I recover- 
ed sufficient strength to move my limbs, which I could 
not do at first. 

As soon as it appeared that there was any probabil- 
ity of my recovery, my kind friends agreed that the 
best chance of regaining my health lay in removing, 
as soon as I could bear the journey, to a better climate. 
During great part of the year, and naturally in the win- 
ter, the cold was so severe that any one standing still 
for even a very short time was frozen to death. Dead 
frozen bodies were frequently brought into the city; 
and it is common in the summer, on the melting of 
the snow, to find numerous corpses of men, and bodies 
of horses, who had perished in the preceding winter. 



LOSS OF LIFE THROUGH COLD. ^53 

So usual an event is this, that there is a custom, or 
law, in the mountains of Armenia, that every summer 
the villagers go out to the more dangerous passes, and 
bury the dead whom they are sure to find. They have 
a legal right to their clothes, arms, and the accouter- 
ments of the horses, on condition of forwarding all bales 
of merchandise, letters, and parcels to the places to 
which they are directed. 

During the whole month of December the Pasha had 
caused four mules to be exercised every day with a 
takterawan, or litter, which he provided for my con- 
veyance to Trebizond. Two mules, led by one man, 
carried the litter ; the other two followed tamely, led 
by another man, close behind, to be ready to take the 
places of the others if they were tiijed or disabled. 
From morning to night, the men and the mules, and 
the takterawan, stumped along through the snow, till 
they dared to face the storm and the immense cold, 
and could climb up and down the icy rocks like goats. 
As soon as I was able, I was sent out in the litter to try 
how I could bear it, and to settle various contrivances 
for keeping out the cold, and enabling me to bear the 
motion of the mules. 

One day Colonel Williams rode out on the Persian 
road to see whether it was passable for Dr. Wolf, who 
was then staying at Erzeroom, and who wished to 
continue his journey to Bokhara, when he met a num- 
ber of horses, each laden with two frozen bodies of Per- 
sian travelers, one tied on each side of the pack-horse. 
An unfortunate Piedmontese doctor had been lost in a 
snow-storm a short time before, and his body was 
found afterward near a small monastery, three or four 

g- 2 



154 ARMENIA. 



miles from Erzeroom, where he had wandered, bewil- 
dered with the falling snow ; and a whole party, with 
one or two ox-carts, who left a village in the morning 
on their way to another a short distance off, never ar- 
rived there ; they were found huddled together, oxen, 
horses, men, and women, in a snow-drift, dead, and 
frozen hard and stiff, some weeks afterward. The cold 
was so tremendous at this time that the mountains 
were impassahle, and no one was able to move beyond 
a short distance from the town. 



START FOR TREBIZOND. I55 



CHAPTER XII. 

Start for Trebizond. — Personal Appearance of the Author. — Mountain 
Pass. — Reception at Beyboort. — Misfortunes of Mustapha. — Pass of 
Zigana I)agh. — Arrival at Trebizond. 

On the 27th of December, all preparations being 
completed, I started on my journey over the mount- 
ains to Trebizond. Kiamili Pasha had prepared an or- 
der to all and sundry, great and small, upon the road, 
to give me every assistance, and, with this and a pow- 
erful firman from the Sultan, I had authority to do 
whatever I pleased in that part of the .world. About 
twenty attendants accompanied me, besides a certain 
levy from every village I passed, who were to march 
to the next village every day to clear the roads, move 
the snow, and pick us out of it when we tumbled in, 
&c. These villagers were all armed with the peculiar 
dagger of Circassia, called a cama, a most efficient tool 
as well as weapon, and a short, heavy rifle, generally 
beautifully made, with which they hit objects at very 
long distances, 400 yards not being considered out of 
shot. My personal appearance must have been re- 
markable : I had a long beard, and so thin a face that 
my nose was translucent, if not transparent. I had a 
Persian cap upon my head, and over other garments a 
toilet of my own invention, which vested me with a dig- 
nity peculiar to myself: this was a large eider down 
quilt, of bright green silk, in the middle of which I had 
caused a hole to be made, through which I put my 



IqQ ARMENIA. 



head ; the two ends of the quilt hung down before and 
behind, like a chasuble or a poncho ; round it I tied a 
girdle. My general appearance must have been rather 
striking to the beholder, and was probably considered 
by the natives on the road as the official costume of an 
Elchi Bey. I was so weak that when I was bundled 
into the takterawan I could not turn round, and was 
nearly smothered in my own feathers, till somebody 
turned me on the right side upward, when I was able 
to bid adieu to all the principal Europeans and others 
who had kindly assembled to see me off. A number 
of people accompanied me for some distance out of 
the town ; and Colonel Williams came as far as Elije, 
about three hours in the snow, which ended my first 
day's march. 

On the next day, December 28th, we got to Mey- 
mansoor, a village at the foot of the first mountain 
pass, called Hoshapoona, a terrible place at all times, 
but frightful in the depth of winter, and under the qir- 
cumstances I was in. Only two or three days before 
it had been rendered practicable, by driving a thousand 
horses, belonging to the caravans which were snowed 
up at the foot of the pass, up and down the road to 
make a track. This road is what is called a scala ; 
that is, a series of holes, each about a foot deep, some- 
times two feet, about eighteen inches in diameter, and 
the same in distance from one another. From long 
practice, the horses put their feet very cleverly into 
these holes without tripping over the intervening ridges 
of hardened snow. Men on foot usually step on the 
ridges, which is like walking on the rounds of a ladder 
for a few hundred miles, the probabilities of not break- 



M OUNTAIN PASS. 157 



ing your leg if you slip into the hole before or behind 
you being very slight. As in many places this road 
was slantindicular, going up and down at an angle of 
45°, I was reclining in the litter alternately on my 
head and on my heels— mostly on my head going up 
hill. My mules were held upon their feet by as many 
men as could stand on each side, where the road was 
wide enough ; most of it was a ledge on a precipice, 
about eighteen inches wide, when the men supported 
my equipage with ropes, a strong body hopping and 
stumbling behind and before, at the rate of about one 
mile an hour. My glass windows were smashed with 
the least possible delay, but we repaired them the next 
day with oiled paper. At the top of the pass we came 
upon a party of Persians, who were going the other 
way toward Erzeroom ; they were seated in a row, on 
the ledge of the precipice, looking despairingly at a 
number of their baggage-horses which had tumbled 
over, and were wallowing in the snow many hundred 
feet below. They did not seem to be killed, as far as I 
could see, as the snow had broken their fall. The drift 
covered the precipitous rock from the bottom to within 
twenty or thirty feet of the top, and they slid down 
this till they popped into a deep hole in the snow, like 
a well, in the valley below. It did not appear that 
there was any probability of their getting up again. 
The poor Persians crammed themselves into nooks and 
little hollows on the ledge to make room for us to pass. 
I presume their horses were frozen to death before we 
had left them very long. This was an awful spot al- 
together. "We had started before light in the morning, 
and arrived in a dreary mountain valley, at a hovel 



258 ARMENIA. 



called Zaza Khan, in the evening. During one part of 
the day, the danger to the takterawan was so great 
that I was plucked out, and a tall, good-natured man, 
called Beyragdar (the standard-hearer), carried me like 
a hahy in his arms, one or two others supporting him, 
across a tremendous ledge. I was light enough to car- 
ry, but was such a great bundle of fluff that he could 
not see over me, and another man helped him along, 
and showed him where to put his feet. We were very 
fortunate in a fine sunny day for our journey over this 
tremendous mountain. On the last day of the year 
1843 we arrived at the town of Beyboort. Though I 
had sent two horsemen on to say that I was coming, 
no one came out of the town to meet me, and on pro- 
ceeding to the palace or house of the Bey, the govern- 
or of the place I was refused admittance, though he 
had received orders before to pay me every attention. 
I at last was taken in by the Cadi, in whose comfort- 
able house 1 was kindly entertained. The next day 
we met a tatar, a government courier, on the road 
from Trebizond. I sent letters by him to Erzeroom, 
complaining of my reception by the Bey of Beyboort; 
and so rapidly were matters conducted by my friend 
the Pasha, that the Bey was turned out of his govern- 
ment, and another Bey appointed to succeed him, be- 
fore I and my party arrived at Trebizond. This was 
sharp practice, and doubtless had a good effect. The 
chiefs of the other villages, and the one town of Gu- 
mush Khanne, treated me always with great kindness 
and civility. On the 2d of January, at a hovel called 
Khaderach Khan, I met a rich Persian merchant com- 
ing from Constantinople with his wife and family. He 



WAYSIDE ACQUAINTANCES. ^59 

had been eighteen days on the road from Trebizond, 
which is thirty-two hours of tatar-posting ; from hence, 
at this rate, he would be six months on his journey to 
Teheran, to which place he was bound. He was a re- 
markably gentleman-like man, as most Persian gentle- 
men are. He had a great train of servants and attend- 
ants, well dressed and well armed, each with a silver 
tass, or drinking-cup, slung over his shoulder, and a 
handsome cama dangling by a narrow strap from the 
front of his girdle, and his waist squeezed till he could 
hardly shut his mouth, in true Circassian style. He 
had numbers of curious contrivances for comfort and 
convenience : little fire-places, hanging to the stirrup, 
for hot coals, to light the caleoons, &c. His son, a 
smart youth, spoke French, and we passed a very 
pleasant hour together, though I had turned him out 
of the best hole in the hovel, into which Beyragdar laid 
me down softly in the corner ; and I was so much ex- 
hausted that I knew nothing of the confusion I had 
made till I had had a cup of blazing hot Russian tea, 
with a slice of lemon in it instead of cream, and had 
taken the diversion of wondering at an odd sort of par- 
tridge which one of my men had knocked over with a 
stone, for which act I presented him with the sum of 
5 id. sterling. 

At Kale Khan I had given leave to one Mustapha, 
my kawass bashi, or captain of the kawasses, to go 
and see his family, who lived in a village a short dis- 
tance off the road ; he had not seen them for a long 
time, and went on his way rejoicing. At a place call- 
ed Porda Bakchelari, where I was resting on the 3d, 
he made his appearance again ; he was so altered in 



160 ARMENIA. 



looks that I did not know him at first ; so much so, 
that I asked him who he was, and what he wanted 
with me. His history, poor fellow ! was as follows : 

When he arrived at his village, he rode up to the 
door of his own house, thinking to give a happy sur- 
prise to his wife and children, whose names he called 
out as he stopped his horse in the little street. No 
one answered, when he called again, and knocked loud- 
ly at the door several times. At last an old woman 
put her head out of the door of another house, and 
screamed to him to know what he was making such a 
noise ahout. 

" I want such a one," said he, naming his wife. 

"What, Eyesha?" said the old woman; "who are 
you ? You must be a stranger to this place not to 
know that she died of the fever and was buried two 
weeks ago." 

" And where is Hassan ?" said the poor kawass, ask- 
ing for his eldest son. 

" Oh, he died three months ago." 

" And the two little ones ?" he asked. 

" They were buried, I forget how long it is since," 
said the old woman ; " the fever got into that house ; 
the people are all dead. You had better not go in, 
stranger, for it has been locked up by the cadi, and the 
owner, Mustapha Aga, lives a long way off at Erze- 
room. Inshalla ! he will come some day, and the cadi 
will deliver the key to him." 

Mustapha kawass never dismounted from his horse 
in his native village ; he turned slowly away, and rode 
back to the track of the mules and horses of my fol- 
lowers till he caught us up at Bakchelari Khan. 



PASS OF ZIGANA D A G H. IQ{ 

" Allahkerim !" (G-od is merciful !) said his compan- 
ions, when he had told us this sad history. His family 
was swept from the face of the earth ; there was not a 
servant left, not one old well-remembered face to greet 
him in his visit to the village where he had passed his 
childish days. He had heard nothing of the fever or 
of the infliction which had fallen upon his house, and 
suddenly he found himself alone in the wide world. 
We were all grieved for him, but what could we do ? 
every one looked grave as we plodded on again through 
the snow and ice, and smoked the pipe of reflection in 
silence on our weary way. 

On the 7th we got into a fix near a place called 
Madem Khanlari, in the pass of Zigana Dagh, a worse 
place than even Hoshabounar : we had 'been all day 
scrambling about in rocky ledges, and crossing torrents 
and snow-drifts, each of which seemed impassable till 
we went at it with a will : a number of villagers, with 
axes and ropes, came with us, and worked valiantly in 
clearing the ice off the narrow shelves of rock, and 
leading the horses through the most difficult places, 
where they could hardly stand ; sometimes the horses 
were almost lifted by the men. By the greatest care 
and exertion, none as yet fell over the precipices. My 
takterawan was surrounded by a posse of zealous, act- 
ive mountaineers, clinging to each other, and putting 
the mules' feet into the holes which they cut for them 
with their axes. At last we got to a place where there 
was a sudden turn at the narrow edge of a gorge or 
cleft of rock : the length of the litter, with one mule 
before and another behind, made it impossible to turn 
without going over. Somehow, by the help of a num- 



1Q2 ARMENIA. 



ber of men, the front mule was carried by main force 
round the corner, till we were in such a position that 
the hinder mule was being dragged over the precipice 
by the poles of the takterawan, to which it was har- 
nessed. Without a drawing it is difficult to describe 
the position we had got into ; but it may be partly un- 
derstood by the fact that, out of whichever side of the 
takterawan I looked, there was nothing under me, for 
perhaps two hundred feet, till you arrived at a brawl- 
ing torrent, which kept itself alive by violent exercise, 
in jumping, leaping, and tumbling over the rocks and 
cascades at the bottom of the ravine, so that it was 
the only thing not frozen hard and still in the dead 
landscape of thick ice, and snow, and shattered rock, 
and the clean, smooth precipice towered up from the 
little merry stream to hundreds of feet above our heads, 
where an edge of snow and a fringe of icicles shone in 
the bright sky upon the topmost margin of the cliffs. 
Some of the men now sat down, with their legs hang- 
ing over the precipice ; they were supported by other 
men, while, in their turn, they held the legs of the 
mules, who were beginning to get frightened, or per- 
haps choked, and gave utterance to curious exclama- 
tions. My friend Beyragdar made a bridge of his long 
body, by leaning over from the inner angle of the road 
to the side of the takterawan. As for me, beyond 
peeping like an old rat out of a cage, I could not move, 
so I lay still till I was pulled out by two men over 
Beyragdar's back, handed like a bundle over the fore- 
most mule, and stuck upon a horse a little farther on. 
The mules were, somehow or other, saved and released 
from the shafts of the takterawan, which I never saw 



: 



I 












, 



; 






- 1 i an 

raw 



:- mam 



V 

I 



1 I 



'IV -j'v' ' 

1 1 




ARRIVAL AT TREBIZOND. 



165 



again ; they could get it no further, and the rest of the 
journey I made on horseback, supported by a man on 
each side when the road was wide enough, by one 
when it was too narrow for two, and, when there was 
only room for the horse alone, Beyragdar carried me in 
his arms till we got to the Strada Reale, good two feet 
wide, when I was put upon a horse again. 

In this way, by slow degrees, we scrambled on our 
way, till, on the 10th of January, after fifteen days' 
journey through the intense cold of the mountains, I 
arrived, in better health and strength than when I 
started, at the edge of the table-land, from whence I 
saw the blue waters of the sea, and at 11 o'clock A.M. 
I was seated in my room in the quarantine station at 
Trebizond. 



IQQ ARMENIA. 



CHAPTER XIII. 

Former History of Trebizond. — Ravages of the Goths. — Their Siege 
and Capture of the City. — Dynasties of Courtenai and the Comneni. 
— The " Emperor" David. — Conquest of Trebizond by Mehemet II. 

Trebizond, so famous in the Middle Ages as the res- 
idence of magicians, enchanters, and redoubted heroes 
of chivahy, is better known in the pages of romance 
than for any facts of historical importance which oc- 
curred there during many centuries. The only person 
who might probably have been able to throw much 
light upon the ancient history of this Byzantine city 
was that veracious chronicler, the Cid Hamet Benge- 
nelli, who, in his account of the renowned and valor- 
ous Knight of the Rueful Countenance, records of Don 
Quixote that " the poor gentleman already imagined 
himself at least crowned Emperor of Trebizond by the 
valor of his arm ; and wrapped up in these agreeable 
delusions, and hurried on by the strange pleasure he 
took in romances of chivalry, he prepared to execute 
what he so much desired." 

Two real events, however, occurred at Trebizond 
which I shall endeavor to describe — the only ones 
which stand out with any prominence in the records 
of the dukes, counts, and governors who held this prov- 
ince in their languid rule. 

In the third century, the Groths, a band of desperate 
barbarians, who came originally from Prussia, were 
established in a curious out-of-the-way kingdom, situ- 



HISTORICAL SKETCH OF TREBIZOND. IQj 

ated on the Cimmerian Bosporus, the inlet which gives 
access to the Sea of Azof from the Black Sea. Trebi- 
zond, the capital of a Roman province, had been found- 
ed in the days of Xenophon by a Grecian colony, and 
now owed its wealth and splendor to the munificence 
of the Emperor Hadrian, who had constructed an arti- 
ficial harbor for its shipping, while the town was de- 
fended on the land side by a double line of walls and 
towers, some part of which probably exist at the pres- 
ent time among the fortifications afterward erected by 
the Christian emperors and the Turks. In those troub- 
lous times the country was in disorder, and the wealthy 
patricians had sent their treasures into the town for 
greater security, the garrison having been re-enforced 
by an additional body of 10,000 men. 'A numerous 
fleet of ships was in the harbor, which, perhaps, were 
timidly seeking refuge from the pirates of the Euxine 
within the encircling quays of the harbor of Hadrian. 
The riches of the inhabitants, the balmy climate, and 
the soft manners of the G-reeks, had enervated the spir- 
its of the commanders of the troops ; the fashionable 
triflers were sunk in luxury and ease ; feeling secure 
within the impregnable walls of the imperial fortress, 
they gave themselves up to feelings of indolent dis- 
dain of foreign enemies ; and the brilliant officers and 
scornful senators, in flowing robes, passed their days 
in feasting and attending upon the ladies, to the neglect 
of discipline and vigilance, trusting that the lofty walls 
and mighty towers were sufficient bulwarks to keep 
off the barbarians whom they despised. 

About the year 260 of our era, the Goths, who had 
made several roving expeditions on the shores of Cir- 



168 



ARMENIA. 



cassia, had plundered, with various success, the tem- 
ples and cities on the coasts of the Black Sea. These 
indomitable savages embarked on board a fleet of small 
flat-bottomed boats, each containing only a few men, 
who inhabited a sort of house with a shelving roof, 
built of wood, in the centre of the boat. An innumer- 
able shoal of these floating houses spread over the sur- 
face of the waves, trusting to the winds for the course 
they should pursue, and to the ravage of the villages 
on shore for food. This swarm of rapacious pirates ar- 
rived in the course of one of their forays in the neigh- 
borhood of Trebizond ; they landed in. numbers under 
the walls, from the summits of which the fair damsels 
and silken warriors looked down with pitying scorn on 
the uncouth behavior, badly-made garments, and coarse 
appearance of the roving Groths, and, having satisfied 
their curiosity and expressed their contempt for the 
horde of barbarians who had arrived in the strange fleet 
of little boats, they retired to the arcades surrounding 
the courts of the palaces ; some went to the forum in 
the centre of the town, to hear the news and laugh at 
the uncouth appearance of the (xoths. The ladies and 
gentlemen, changing their morning dresses for a lighter 
and richer evening costume, assembled in the marble 
halls of many palaces, charmed with the excitement of 
a new subject for ridicule in the persons and dresses 
of the G-oths, and a new theme for conversation in the 
refined assemblies of the polished nobles and lovely 
damsels of the luxurious city of Trebizond. 

I can imagine the conversation of a pleasant little 
party assembled in the triclinium of the prefect of the 
city. The gentlemen, in studied attitudes, reclining 



AN IMAGINARY CONVERSATION. IQQ 

on the divans or couches placed against the wall, be- 
hind the marble tables ; the ladies, in graceful robes, 
seated at their feet; while pages, with wreaths of 
flowers round their heads, in short tunics of white silk, 
brought up dishes of blackbirds stewed in wine ; tarts 
sweetened with honey, which could be eaten with im- 
punity by natives, while strangers lost their senses if 
they ventured on the dangerous condiment. 

" Eudocia, dearest, did you go up those horrid steps 
upon the wall, to look at those people outside ? Did 
you ever see such creatures ?" 

" Oh, yes, Lais, I did. Poor barbarians ! why do 
they tie their legs up with leather thongs in that funny 
way ? And what skimpy tunics they wear ! I think 
they must be made of sheepskin ! There was one of 
them — a great personage, no doubt, in his own nasty lit- 
tle country — who had made himself a toga of a blanket. 
Did not you see him, Xenophon? You were with us." 

"Well — aw — why, yes, I think I did," says Xeno- 
phon ; " but what heavy axes they carry ! what long, 
straight swords they wear ! They say their hilts are 
gold ; I dare swear they are brass. Our legionaries 
would make short work of them." 

"Well," says Lais, "I wish you would send those 
ugly people away, for one can not take a drive in the 
Hippodrome since they have been here these two days, 
and the new silver harness for my white oxen is so 
pretty. But, Eudocia, did you see the lady ? I hear 
she is a princess — a princess, who travels in a punt ! 
Dear me, a great lady she must be !" 

" I never heard of her," says Eudocia ; " do tell me 
all about her. What is she like ? Is she tall or short ? 

H 



170 



ARMENIA. 



pretty or ugly? or what? Let us have a description 
of your barbarian lady." 

" Why," answers Lais, " she is awfully tall, and she 
has light hair, plaited in two long tails like ropes, and 
much of the same color, which hang down on each side 
of her face in front, and reach to her knees. She is 
dressed in a long and very full gown, with innumer- 
able plaits, coming high up round her throat. Her 
gown is confined round her waist by a girdle of gold 
and jewels, and she has a golden fillet round her head. 
This gown was light blue, and was so long I could not 
see her feet ; but those of the maidens with her were 
of such a size, Eudocia, that four of our feet might 
walk about in their shoes, which were of gold stuff, 
coming up to the ankle, and worked with pearls — as 
heavy as lead, I should imagine." 

" But was the princess pretty?" again inquires Eu- 
docia. 

"Xenophon says she is, but I don't believe him. 
She has strange-colored eyes, I was told — the color of 
her gown, and is not pale and smooth as marble, but 
with rosy cheeks and a throat as white as snow ; but 
she looked very stupid, and solemn, and proud. "What 
she can have to be proud of, poor creature ! I can not 
conceive ; she has not the black eyes and bright smile 
of our girls." 

" That is a curious wool the men wear on their 
caps," saith Xenophon; "it is curly, and of a light 
bluish-gray color. The barbarians seem to think it is 
very fine. I have not seen any thing like it : it is 
made of the skin of a peculiar breed of lambs, to be 
met with nowhere out of their country." 



ASSAULT ON TREBIZOND. 171 



" What in the world can they want so many fagots 
for ?" asks another young lady. " I am sure the days 
are hot enough in the summer ; perhaps they have no 
firewood in their own miserable regions ; they have 
been doing nothing but cut bushes and make fagots 
of them on the hill-side above the citadel ever since 
they have been here." 

"Ah," says Xenophon, "except the amusement of 
burning a few villages, though that could hardly repay 
them the trouble, for all the goods worth carrying away 
have been brought within the walls. However, here 
comes the little cup-bearer with the Chian and Faler- 
nian wine. Never mind these outer barbarians ; let 
us go to supper." 

So they went to supper, and, affecting classic tastes, 
sang verses on heroic themes from Homer, accompa- 
nied by music on the lyre and the double pipe. 

The Goths went to supper too outside, under the 
trees, and ate great pieces of beef cut from oxen roasted 
whole. The night was very dark, but the guards and 
the citizens lit up their rooms gayly within the city, 
which resounded with laughter, songs, and merriment. 

The night advanced, and so did the (roths; each 
man bore a fagot, which he threw into the ditch be- 
low the wall. Thousands were piled upon those be- 
low, others were thrown on them ; the heap of fagots 
rose, the upper ones were level with the battlements. 
"Where were the city guards ? Where were the legion- 
aries and the 10,000 auxiliary troops? They were 
sleeping off the fatigues of the evening feast ; they were 
any where but where they should be — upon the walls. 

Down from the towers and the bastions poured a 



172 



ARMENIA. 



stream of fierce determined warriors ; they closed the 
gates on that side, for fear the garrison should get out ; 
but the alarm was spread ; the legionaries, who were 
awakened by the cry, made off through the opposite 
side of the fortifications and escaped into the country. 
Those who were not quick enough were stabbed in the 
back and slain in heaps ; fire and the sword commenced 
their fearful reign, blood ran in the streets, the massa- 
cre was horrible. The most holy temples, says the 
historian, the most splendid edifices, were involved in 
a common destruction. The booty that fell into the 
hands of the Groths was immense. The wealth of the 
adjacent countries, which had been deposited in Tre- 
bizond as a secure place of refuge, was added to the 
spoil. The number of captives was incredible ; those 
who were left alive were gathered together by the 
G-oths. Lais and Budocia became the handmaids of 
the G-othic princess. Xenophon and 2000 able-bodied 
dandies were driven down to the port by 200 Goths, 
who made them chain each other to the oars of the gal- 
leys, on board of which the enormous plunder of Trebi- 
zond was embarked by the forced labor of the citizens, 
one or two being cut in half with a sweep of the long 
G-othic sword, to encourage the others if they did not 
hurry in their work under the burning rays of the sun. 
The Cimmerian Bosporus received the fleet of galleys 
laden with the treasures, and rowed by the slaves, of 
the noble city of Trebizond, now smouldering in a heap 
of smoking ruins. 

Thus ended the first episode in the history of Trebi- 
zond. 

For more than a thousand years the history of Tre- 



THE COURTENAI ANDCOMNENI. J73 

bizond remains enveloped in the mists of obscurity and 
insignificance ; various dukes, princes, and counts suc- 
ceeded each other in a long line of inglorious pride. 

In the thirteenth century the chivalrous house of 
Courtenai, by the assistance of the heroes of the Cru- 
sades, mounted the throne of Constantinople, and the 
ancestors of the Earl of Devon produced three emperors, 
who reigned in succession over the Oriental portion of 
the Roman empire. The ancient dynasty of the Com- 
neni, being expelled from the dominions over which they 
had presided for centuries, fled for refuge into various 
lands. Alexius, the son of Manuel and grandson of An- 
dronicus Comnenus, obtained the government of the 
duchy of Trebizond, which extended from the unfortu- 
nate Sinope to the borders of Circassia. ' He seems to 
have reigned in peace. The acts of his son, who suc- 
ceeded him, are as unknown as his name, which has not 
even descended to posterity. The grandson of Alexius 
was David Comnenus, who, with an assurance and pre- 
sumption which is almost ludicrous, took upon himself 
the style and title of Emperor of Trebizond. Puffed 
up with vanity and self-conceit, this feeble prince en- 
joyed for a short period the imperial dignity which he 
possessed only in name. The erection of this quaint 
and ridiculous Christian empire appears to have made 
a great sensation among the knights and troubadours 
of the fifteenth century. The geographical knowledge 
of those days was confined to few, and the empire of 
Trebizond, like that of Prester John, whose extent and 
situation were equally apocryphal, formed the theme 
of many a fabulous adventure and many a romance, 
which served to beguile the evening hours by the 



174 ARMENIA. 



firesides of the castles and convents of England and 
France. Fairies and wizards, ogres and giants, peo- 
pled the realms of fancy in this distant empire. Love- 
ly princesses were rescued from the thraldom of pay- 
nim castellans, and followers of Mahound and Terma- 
gaunt, by valiant Christian knights armed with cross- 
hilted swords, and lutes, and talismans, the gift of be- 
nignant fairies, whose existence was only to be found 
in the imaginations of the unknown but delightful au- 
thors of the romances of chivalry, and the poems and 
ballads of the trouveurs and troubadours. 

The truths were not so agreeable as the fictions of 
"the good old times." As it happens to be in my 
power to do so, I present the reader with a portrait of 
the mighty emperor, as he appeared on the occasion 
which I am about to describe. His dress consisted of 
a tight gown of scarlet silk ; round his neck, down the 
front of his gown, and round the bottom of it, were 
bands of gold about four inches wide ; these were edged 
with pearls, and ornamented with large rubies and em- 
eralds in rows down the centre of each band of gold. 
On his arms, above the elbows, were golden armlets, 
and round his wrists gold bracelets, all set with color- 
ed precious stones. His girdle, of the same pattern, 
and about three inches wide, had a hanging end about 
two feet long, which the Byzantine emperors, for some 
undiscovered reason, seem always to have carried over 
the left arm. In his right hand he bore a golden scep- 
tre, about three feet long, with a largish cross at the 
top, set with enormous pearls. On his head he wore a 
close golden crown, of which the top (that part made 
of velvet in the crown of England) was also of metal, 



THE "EMPEROR" DAVID COMNENUS. ^75 

like a helmet. From this crown a fillet set with pearls 
hung down on each side of his face to his beard, which 
was of some length. Scarlet silk hose and golden san- 
dals completed the imperial costume, except that he 
rejoiced in two round ornaments of gold and jewels, 
each the size of a plate, which were affixed to his robe 
on the outside of the thigh. 

The costume of the empress was very similar, only 
her crown was open at the summit. She, contrary to 
female custom, wore no girdle, while over her shoulders 
hung a mantle of a dark color, embroidered all over 
with gold. The emperor wore no mantle, although 
this garment is usually considered as an essential part 
of the royal costume. Such was the appearance of 
David Comnenus r Emperor of Trebizond, when he gave 
audience to the embassadors from foreign powers, seat- 
ed on a golden throne at the summit of a high flight 
of steep golden steps, surrounded by his court and his 
officers (conspicuous among whom appeared the lictors 
with silver axes, for, as in the third century the Ro- 
mans affected the usages of the Greeks, in the fifteenth 
century the G-reeks followed the customs of the Csesars 
— so prone is human nature to revere the ancient cer- 
emonies of by-gone days), puffed up with vanity at his 
own glorious position, and placed in awful majesty 
upon his golden throne in the chamber of audience, 
whose walls were painted to look like porphyry, and 
the ceilings colored with figures on a gold ground in 
imitation of mosaic, an ornament too expensive for the 
resources of the empire. The chamberlains and her- 
alds with a loud voice announce the arrival of an en- 
voy from the high and mighty lord the Soldan Mehemet 



176 ARMENIA. 



II. ; upon which the twelve lictors round the throne 
lifted up their voices, and cried out, " Semper bibat 
imperator :" the letter v not being found in the Greek 
alphabet, vivat was spelt with a beta, 6 ; and being 
pronounced as it was spelt, the sense of the exclama- 
tion was a good deal compromised. 

The solemn envoy from the Soldan stalked into the 
hall, followed by a grisly retinue clothed from head to 
foot in armor, partly composed of steel plates inlaid 
with sentences from the Koran in gold letters, and 
partly completed with flexible chain mail. Their hel- 
mets had conical summits, almost like a low church 
steeple, while instead of plumes they displayed a rod 
of steel, from which fluttered a small crimson flag from 
the summits of their casques. The letter from the 
Soldan, inclosed in a bag of brocade, was handed to 
the important emperor, who, on breaking the seal, read 
the following words : 

"Wilt thou secure thy treasures and thy life by re- 
signing thy kingdom, or wilt thou rather forfeit thy 
kingdom, thy treasures, and thy life ?" 

But a short time before, such was the terror occa- 
sioned by the name of the redoubted Sultan Mehemet 
II., who had just planted the victorious crescent over 
the cross of St. Sofia, that Ismael Beg, the Moham- 
medan Prince of Sinope, who derived an enormous rev- 
enue from the copper-mines in his principality, imme- 
diately surrendered his dominions on a summons of a 
like import with the above, although at that period Si- 
nope was defended with strong fortifications, 400 can- 
nons, and 12,000 men. 

David Comnenus descended from his golden throne 



END OF THE COMNENI DYNASTY, ffl 



in the year 1461, and with his family was sent, appa- 
rently as a prisoner, to a distant castle, where, being 
accused of corresponding with the King of Persia, he 
and his whole race were massacred by the orders of 
his furious conqueror. With him ended the illustrious 
dynasty of the Comneni, and the history of the inde- 
pendent state of Trebizond, which has since those 
times remained a remote, and till lately an almost un- 
explored province of the Turkish empire. 

H2 



178 ARMENIA. 



CHAPTER XIV. 

PRESENT CONDITION OF ARMENIA. 

Impassable Character of the Country. — Dependence of Persia on the 
Czar. — Russian Aggrandizement. — Delays of the "Western Powers. 
— Russian Acquisitions from Turkey and Persia. — Oppression of 
the Russian Government. — The Conscription. — Armenian Emigra- 
tion. — The Armenian Patriarch. — Latent Power of the Pope. — 
Anomalous Aspect of religious Questions. 

The description of Armenia and the adjacent dis- 
tricts in the foregoing pages will have sufficed to give 
a general idea of the many difficulties to be encoun- 
tered by those whose business leads them through this 
inhospitable region, where they meet with impediments 
at every step, from the lofty mountains traversed by 
roads accessible only to mules and horses, the extreme 
cold of the high passes and elevated plains, the impos- 
sibility of obtaining provisions, and the savage charac- 
ter of the Koords and other wandering tribes who roam 
over this wild country. If a traveler, accompanied by 
a few followers, and assisted by firmans from the Sul- 
tan, finds this journey arduous in the extreme, how 
much more so must it prove to the general in com- 
mand of an army, with many thousand men to provide 
for, with artillery and heavy baggage to encumber his 
march, on roads inaccessible to carriages or wheeled 
vehicles of any kind ! and if to these is added an ene- 
my on the alert to cut off supplies, to harass the long, 
straggling line of march, and to attack the passing 



IMPASSABILITY OF THE COUNTRY. ^79 



army in narrow denies from behind rocks, and from 
the summits of precipices, where they are safe from 
molestation, it will be understood that the difficulties 
presenting themselves to military operations in these 
regions are almost insuperable. It is the inaccessible 
nature of Circassia, even more than the bravery of its 
inhabitants, which has enabled them to resist the over- 
whelming power of Russia for so many years. On the 
approach to Erzeroom these difficulties increase. From 
Georgia, Persia, and Trebizond, there is no other city 
or entrepot where an army could rest to lay in stores 
and collect supplies for a campaign, with the exception 
of Erzeroom, which is the centre or key to all these 
districts. If it was strongly fortified, as it should be, 
or was, at any rate, in the occupation of an active, in- 
telligent government, the power who possessed it would 
hold the fate of that part of Asia in its hands. 

No caravans could pass, no mercantile speculations 
could be carried on, and no large bodies of troops could 
march without its permission. They would, in all 
probability, perish from the rigors of the climate if they 
were not assisted, even without the necessity of attack- 
ing them by force of arms. At this moment, the great, 
er part of the artillery of the Turkish army is, I be- 
lieve, buried under the snow in one of the ravines be* 
tween Beyboort and Erzeroom, from whence it has no 
chance of being rescued till next summer, It was the 
impassable character of tins country, and the treacher- 
ous habits of the robber tribes of Koordistan, which 
made the retreat of Xenophon and the Ten Thousand 
through the same regions the wonderful event which 
it has been always considered. While this is the na- 



] §Q ARMENIA. 



ture of the elevated lands and mountains, the valleys 
which surround the snowy regions are absolutely pes- 
tiferous : in many of them no one can sleep one night 
without danger of fever, frequently ending in death. 
The port, or roadstead, of Batoum is so unhealthy as 
to be utterly uninhabitable to strangers during all the 
hot season of the year. I wish to draw attention to 
these circumstances, in order to explain the almost im- 
possibility of dispossessing any power which had al- 
ready obtained a firm footing in this district ; and it is 
in order to fix herself firmly in this important post that 
Russia is now advancing in that direction, with a per- 
fect knowledge of the advantages to be derived from 
this barren and unfruitful region, while she has the 
advantage of being able to send supplies to her forces 
by the Caspian Sea ; for, once within her grasp, Persia 
is no longer independent ; and, fettered as she is by 
her Russian debt, and what, in private affairs, would 
be called her heavy mortgage on her only valuable 
provinces on the shores of the Caspian — Greilaun and 
Mazenderaun — she must sink into the state of a vas- 
sal kingdom, subject to the commands of her superior 
lord the Czar. 

The sum she owes to Russia is said to be about two 
millions sterling ; far more than she could ever raise 
at a short notice, while she would receive no assistance 
in war from any of the neighboring Sooni tribes, whose 
religious feelings are so much opposed to the Sheahs ; 
therefore, unless supported by Great Britain, Persia is 
now almost at the mercy of Russia. Russia is alto- 
gether a military power, and, as in the Dark Ages, the 
Czar and his nobles affect to despise the mercantile 



RUSSIAN AGGRANDIZEMENT. \Q\ 

class, and, instead of doing what they can to promote 
industry and commerce, hy opening communications, 
making roads and harbors, establishing steamers on 
rivers, and giving facility to the interchange of various 
commodities, the productions of distant quarters of her 
own enormous empire, she throws every obstacle in 
the way of her internal trade, and by heavy import 
duties, exactions of many oppressive kinds, and the 
universal plunder and cheating carried on by all the 
government officials in the lower grades of employ- 
ment, she has paralyzed both her foreign and domestic 
resources. The Czar prefers to buy his own aggran- 
dizement with the blood of his confiding subjects, to 
the more honorable and less cruel course of enriching 
his empire by the extension of his commercial relations 
abroad, and the development of the peaceful arts, in- 
dustry, science, and general improvement of the nations 
subjected to his rule. If it was not for this utter dis- 
regard of commerce, and the undivided attention of the 
Russian government to every thing connected with 
military glory, the navigation of the great rivers would 
have poured many more roubles into the treasury of 
St. Petersburgh than will be gained by any territorial 
accessions previous to the taking of Constantinople. 
Even under present circumstances, it is wonderful 
that a canal has not been made from Tzaritzin, on the 
Yolga, to the nearest point upon the Don, a distance 
of not more than thirty miles, for by this means the 
silk of the northern provinces of Persia would be brought 
with the greatest facility into the Black Sea. In a 
mercantile point of view, Russia would gain more by 
the construction of that canal than by the conquest of 



1Q2 ARMENIA. 



Armenia, for it would enable her to develop the great 
resources of Greilaun and Mazenderaun, virtually he- 
longing to her at this moment. The trade which in 
former times enriched the famous cities of Bokhara 
and Samarkand would be carried by caravans through 
Khiva, either now, or soon to be, the head-quarters of 
a Russian governor; from thence they would, with 
any encouragement, pass on their rich bales of mer- 
chandise to the Russian posts of Karagan, or Krasno- 
vodsk, on the eastern shores of the Caspian, or to Aste- 
rabad on the south, and at these ports, now unknown 
to European navigators, ships might be laden which 
would discharge their cargoes at Liverpool, St. Peters- 
burgh, of New York. 

I have said above that Russia has but little to gain 
by her territorial conquests in Asiatic Turkey until she 
takes Constantinople. I say this because, if things are 
permitted by the "Western Powers to continue as they 
have done for some years, the Czar will most certainly 
be enthroned in the capital of the Byzantine emperors, 
principally by the assistance of England and France. 
It is a question only of time : for that the Patriarch of 
Constantinople will give his blessing to the Christian 
emperor under the dome of St. Sofia sooner or later, 
and before many years have passed, I have hardly any 
doubt ; and when once fairly seated on that throne, 
the Powers of Europe will not shake him in his seat. 
The acquisition of the Crimea, with the strong naval 
arsenal of Sevastopol, gave the Czar the command of 
the Black Sea. The wonderful business of Navarino, 
where the English and French admirals fought his bat- 
tle for him, and crippled his enemy and their own an- 



RUSSIAN AGGRANDIZEMENT. ^§3 

cient ally for many a year, was the next important 
step. The third seems to be taking place at this mo- 
ment, if indeed sufficient advantages have not been 
gained already to suffice for the present emergency. 
It matters little whether Russia does or does not retain 
the provinces of Wallachia and Moldavia, which she 
has several times occupied before ; she has almost 
drained the treasury of her enemy, now straining eve- 
ry nerve to avert the impending evil. Turkey will 
hardly be able to support the expenses of the war for 
any length of time from her own resources. Even if 
a diplomatic peace is concluded, it will, in fact, amount 
only to a truce, during which the Czar will have time 
to strengthen his position, and prepare bis forces for 
another and a more vigorous assault on the first con- 
venient opportunity which occurs, from any dissension 
which may arise between the leading powers of the 
West ; and the Sultan, having received nothing from 
his ancient allies but fair words, will be less able to 
defend himself than he is at present. 

The greatest of blessings in this world is peace, and 
every thing should be done to avoid the breaking out 
of war, with all the horrors and sufferings which are 
brought upon mankind by that dreadful scourge. I 
think it was the Duke of Wellington who said that, 
next to a defeat, the most awful of all calamities was 
a victory. Every endeavor should be made to secure 
the happiness of peace. To those, however, who have 
no further means of information than what they read 
in newspapers, it would seem that, while we might 
have put out the candle, we have waited till the chim- 
ney is on fire, if not the house itself, and then who 



284 ARMENIA. 



can tell how far and wide the conflagration may ex- 
tend ? 

If England and France had shown a determined 
front, and informed the Czar that, being bound by 
treaty to preserve the integrity of the Turkish empire, 
they should consider the passage of the Pruth by one 
Russian armed man as a violation of that treaty and 
a declaration of war, and that they should act accord- 
ingly without delay, in all probability no war would 
have commenced, no blood would have been shed, no 
ruinous expenses would have been incurred. War 
having commenced, heavy and exhausting sums of 
money have been drawn from the treasury of the Sul- 
tan. "When the ice set in upon the Baltic, what was 
to prevent the allied fleet from taking possession of the 
stores of corn, and occupying or destroying the city of 
Odessa? Sevastopol, impregnable by sea, is not — or 
was not two years ago, and, I believe, at this day is 
not — defensible on the land side. The Bay of Streles- 
kaia offers a convenient landing-place about three 
miles in the rear of the fortifications of the arsenal, 
where a Turkish army might be brought in two days 
from Constantinople to try its fortunes with the Rus- 
sian force ; or, if that was not judged expedient, Se- 
vastapol could have been blockaded till some advanta- 
geous terms were gained for our ally. Failing this, a 
French army, convoyed and assisted by their own and 
our fleets, would have settled the question without 
doubt, and may do so still ; but, unless an indemnity 
for the expenses of the war is exacted from Russia for 
her most unjust and unjustifiable aggression, very lit- 
tle advantage will be gained for Turkey, a great step 



RUSSIAN ACQUISITIONS. 185 



will have "been accomplished by the Czar, and the pos- 
session of the Crimea almost insures him the posses- 
sion of Constantinople some day, perhaps at no very 
distant period. The restoration of the Crimea to the 
Turkish empire would, I imagine, be the only means 
of checking the advance of Russia in that direction. 
This, accompanied by a forced treaty, releasing Persia 
from her usurious debt, would restrain the encroach- 
ments of the Czar within certain bounds for some 
years to come. The present aspect of affairs in the 
East becomes more alarming every day. If negotia- 
tions are protracted till the ice of the Baltic melts in 
the spring or early summer, things will assume a much 
more grave appearance, and it will depend on many 
circumstances over which we have no control where 
the conflagration then may spread and where the war 
will end. 

It is impossible to look back upon the history of Rus- 
sia for the last 150 years without admiration and as- 
tonishment at the enormous strides which have been 
made by the giants of the north since that period. 
When Peter the Grreat acceded to the throne of Mus- 
covy, there was no maritime outlet to his empire ex- 
cepting in the icy shores of the Northern Ocean. The 
ground on which the metropolis of St. Petersburg now 
stands was not in the possession of Russia till the year 
1721. Since the year 1774 Russia has acquired, quite 
in the memory of man, a territory from Turkey equal 
in extent to the whole empire of Austria, and much 
larger than the present possessions of the Turks in Eu- 
rope. The following table of the progress of the Rus- 
sian arms in the East will show at a glance how rap- 



Igg ARMENIA. 

idly and steadily she has extended her power, her 
grasping hand, and her outstretched arm in that direc- 
tion ; and it can not be expected that, when she has 
rested and strengthened herself, and consolidated her 
resources in her newly-acquired territories, she will be 
prevented by any slight obstacle from further aggran- 
dizement. 

Russian Acquisitions from Turkey. 

Country to the north of the Crimea 1774 

The Crimea 1783 

Country round Odessa 1792 

Country between the Sea of Azof and the Caspian, at 

the same period as the Crimea 1783 

Besarabia 1812 

Russian Acquisitions from Persia. 

Mingrelia, on the Black Sea 1802 

Immeritia, the same year 1802 

Akalzik 1829 

Georgia 1814 

Ganja 1803 

Karabaugh 1805 

Erivan, Mount Ararat, and Etchmiazin 1828 

Sheki 1805 

Shirvan 1806 

Talish, on the Caspian 1812 

Few of these conquered or deluded nations have 
been able to bear the intolerable oppression of the Rus- 
sian government, arising from the insolence of the petty 
employes, and more particularly the dreadful scourge 
of the conscription, by the aid of which, at any mo- 
ment, children are remorselessly torn forever from their 
parents, whose sole support they were ; families are on 
a sudden divided ; one half sent off no one knows 
whither, never to meet again ; none of these unhappy 
slaves knowing whether it will be their lot to become 



ARMENIAN EMIGRATION. ^87 

soldiers or sailors, but, in either case, they are driven 
off, like beasts, in flocks, by cruel, savage tyrants, who 
steal, as a matter of course, the money provided by 
the superior government for the food of the despairing 
conscripts, while they — brutal and drunken though 
they may be — are distinguished for their love of home, 
and the affection and respect they bear for their pa- 
rents. 

The Nogai Tatars abandoned the Christian religion, 
and took refuge in the territories of the Khan of the 
Crimea, becoming Mohammedans in hopes of obtain- 
ing the protection of the milder rule of Turkey. 

In 1771 a still more extraordinary event took place. 
The Kalmuks, a people who had emigrated from the 
frontiers of China, unable to endure the insults and 
oppressions of the Russian tyranny, made up their 
minds to return to the dominions of the Celestial Em- 
pire, from whence their ancestors had originally come. 
They fought their way through all the hostile tribes 
intervening between them, and their whole nation ar- 
rived safely under the wing of the Emperor of China, 
who afforded them protection, and gave them great 
tracts of land for the pasture of their flocks and herds. 
The embassador of the Empress Catharine, who had 
been dispatched to desire the surrender of the fugitive 
tribe, and — as at this day in Turkey — to demand a 
" renewal of treaties" between the two countries, re- 
ceived the following answer from the court of Pekin : 
" Let your mistress learn to keep old treaties, and then 
it will be time to apply for new ones ;" an answer 
which might have been given in our day to Prince 
MenschikofF, who was lucky in meeting with a milder 



188 



ARMENIA. 



reception at Constantinople than, his predecessor re- 
ceived from the stout old mandarin at Pekin. 

In the year 1829, Kars, Bayazeed, Van, Moush, Er- 
zeroom, and Beyboort (which is coming very near) 
were occupied by the Russians, who evacuated that 
portion of the Turkish empire on the conclusion of the 
treaty of Adrianople. Trusting to the protestations of 
a Christian emperor, sixty-nine thousand Christian 
Armenian families were beguiled into the folly of leav- 
ing Mohammedan dominions, and sitting in peace under 
the paternal protection of the Czar. Over their ruin- 
ed houses I have ridden, and surveyed with sorrow 
their ancient churches in the valleys of Armenia, dese- 
crated and injured, as far as their solid construction 
permitted, by the sacrilegious hands of the Russian 
soldiers, who tried to destroy those temples of their 
own religion which the Turks had spared, and under 
whose rule many of the more recent had been rebuilt 
on their old foundations. The greater part of these 
Armenians perished from want and starvation ; the 
few who survived this sharp lesson have since been 
endeavoring, by every means in their power, to return 
to the lesser evils of the frying-pan of Turkey, from 
whence they had leaped into the fire of despotic Russia. 

By the treaty of Turkomanchai, 1828, the Czar be- 
came possessed of Persian Armenia, of which the capi- 
tal is Erivan. In this district are contained the two 
great objects of Armenian veneration, Etchmiazin and 
Mount Ararat. This noble snowy mountain takes the 
place, in the estimation of the Armenians, that Mount 
Sinai and Mount Zion do amonsr the followers of other 
Christian sects. The foolish legends which disgrace 



THE. ARMENIAN PATRIARCH. ^go, 

the purity of true religion usually relate to the object 
of local tradition which may be met with in the neigh- 
borhood of the monastery ; consequently an attack of 
indigestion in an Armenian monk generally produces 
a vision of some nonsensical revelation about Noah's 
ark, which is still supposed to remain, hidden to mor- 
tal eye, under the clouds and snows of Mount Ararat. 
Etchmiazin is an ancient fortified monastery, with- 
in whose walls resides the Patriarch of the Armenian 
Church, the spiritual head of that body, and who is 
looked up to indeed as the temporal chief of that scat- 
tered nation whose industrious children are settled in 
India, Constantinople, and in many other parts of the 
world, so that those who live and thrive abroad are 
much more numerous and more wealthy than those who 
reside in Armenia itself. The possession, therefore, of 
the person and residence of the Patriarch is a fact of 
no small importance in the history of Russian advance- 
ment. To undertake a pilgrimage to Etchmiazin is a 
meritorious act among the professors of the Armenian 
faith ; and the influence exercised over the Patriarch 
is diffused, through the obedient medium of bishops, 
priests, and deacons, through all parts of Turkey, and 
many of the cities of India, to an extent which would 
surprise those who never have troubled themselves 
with the affairs of the Armenian jeweler or silver- 
smith in an Eastern bazaar, for they are almost invari- 
ably dealers in jewels and precious metals ; or serafs, 
bankers, among the native population ; a position 
which renders their influence of no small consequence 
in every city where they reside. By these means, 
among others, the political interest of the Czar is nour- 



190 ARMENIA. 



ished and extended on the Persian Grulf, at Bom- 
bay, Bushire, Madras, and many another place, in the 
same manner as the sway and power of the Roman 
pontiff is upheld, and that by no weak and trembling 
hand, in Ireland, England, London, and the House of 
Commons. And yet we pretend that there is no such 
power as the See of Rome ; we ignore the existence of 
the Pope, and sneer at the prince of a petty Italian 
state supported by French bayonets, who is in that 
rotten and decaying state that we or our children are 
to see his end. 

But my belief is, that the power of Rome is by no 
means in a falling state, nor would it be so even if 
the rule of some band of miscreants usurped for a lit- 
tle while the misgovernment of the Eternal City. The 
power of the Pope is now, at this moment, one of the 
greatest upon the earth ; and as irreligion and dissent 
increase, so will the most wonderfully clever institu- 
tion of the temporal power of the Roman Church in- 
crease. Its minute and marvelous organization, the 
perfect understanding and subordination of the inferior 
to the superior officer, its fixed and certain purpose, 
give the Pope the command over such a united and 
well-disciplined army of trained and fearless soldiers 
as never could be brought together by Caesar, or Na- 
poleon, or our own old Duke. The peace of Europe in 
this direction arises not from the slightest want of 
power or means on the part of the See of Rome, but 
from the jealousy of the body in whose hands the elec- 
tion of the Supreme Pontiff lies. For many years they 
have elected a good old monk, who has passed his 
whole life in a state of supreme ignorance of the world 



LATENT POWER OF THE POPE. ][9^ 

in general, and the whole art of government in partic- 
ular. In his hands the mighty power at his command 
remains inert — a slumbering volcano. But should the 
ivory chair of St. Peter ever sustain the weight of a 
young and energetic man of genius, with some years 
of life before him, no one would laugh at the tottering 
state of Rome. 

As for the petty principality of a state in Italy, I 
have been told, in the Pope's own ante-room, that it is 
a burden to him. His extended sway does not depend 
on the doubtful loyalty of half a dozen regiments of 
Italians, or on the more honest obedience of two or 
three thousand Swiss guards, but on the hearts and 
hands of many millions, who look up to, him as their 
spiritual superior at all times, and their temporal supe- 
rior, whom they are bound to obey in opposition to all 
other sovereigns, when any thing occurs " ad majorem 
Dei gloriam," and for the advancement of the Church 
of Rome. 

A power such as this, which in our trafficking and 
money-making country is thought little of — a power 
such as this lies dormant in the hands of the Grand 
Lama of Thibet, whose followers form almost half of 
all mankind — in those of the Patriarch of Constantino- 
ple — and to an inferior degree in those of the Patriarch 
of Etchmiazin. They are all paralyzed and quiescent 
from the same cause, namely, that the chiefs of these 
mighty institutions are old, ignorant men, whose minds 
have not the energy, or their hands the power, to work 
the tremendous engine committed to their care. That 
the Czar is perfectly aware of the uses to be made of 
the religious feelings of the inhabitants of other gov- 



^92 ARMENIA. 



ernments to further his own ends, we see from the nu- 
merous magnificent presents ostentatiously forwarded 
by him to churches in Greece and Turkey, where the 
monks and priests by these means are gained over to 
his interests. From his generous hand, extended to 
the borders of the Adriatic, about £5000 are annually 
dropped into the poor-box of that truculent specimen 
of the church militant, the Yladica of Montenegro. 
But the Czar is not an aged monk ; he is not wanting 
in energy or strength ; and he will not fail to pull the 
strings which hang loosely in the hands of the Arme- 
nian patriarch. If he pulls them evenly and well, he 
will advance his interests far and wide, even in the do- 
minions of other princes, who may hardly be aware of 
the influence exercised in their states from a source so 
distant and unobtrusive. The danger in his case is, 
that he may use too great violence, and break the 
strings from too severe a tension, raising the storm 
against himself which he intended to direct against 
others. However this may be, the power of which he 
holds the reins is one which may be used for the ad- 
vancement of the greatest or the most ignoble ends. 
For the most sublime and glorious actions, the most 
heroic and the most infernal deeds that have ever been 
accomplished by mankind, have been occasioned by the 
awakening of religious zeal, or by the fanaticism of re- 
ligious hatred, from the earliest days, when the pen of 
history was first dipped in blood. 

Nothing can be more anomalous than the present as- 
pect of religious questions. The Christian Emperor 
of Russia is at this moment exciting the minds of his 
subjects to make war upon the infidel ; and his armies 



ASPECT OP RELIGIOUS QUESTIONS. 193 



march under the impression that they undertake a new 
crusade. Yet this crusade is carried on in direct con- 
tradiction to truth, justice, honor, and every principle 
of the Christian religion, whose pure and sacred pre- 
cepts are violated at every turn. On the other hand, 
the Mohammedan, or infidel, as he is called, displays, 
under the most difficult and insulting circumstances, 
the highest Christian virtues of integrity, moderation, 
and strict adherence to his word in treaties granted by 
himself or his predecessors ; at the same time, the ar- 
mies of the upright Sultan are commanded by a Chris- 
tian renegade who has abjured his faith, and yet he 
fights against the Christian power in a righteous cause. 

The terrible revolution which is the cause of such 
awful scenes of bloodshed and atrocities in China is 
carried on under the name of our merciful and just 
Savior, whose mild religion these rebels against their 
sovereign affect to follow. 

The savage atrocities of the Holy Inquisition, the 
cruel massacres by the- Spaniards in America, were 
perpetrated by men who made a cloak of the benevo- 
lent precepts of the Gospel for the perpetration of the 
most brutal crimes. 

Those times we thought were past, but human na- 
ture is the same ; and where the light of true Chris- 
tianity has penetrated, we find a period of wonderful 
intelligence and appreciation of the truths of the doc- 
trines of our Lord in some places ; in others, where a 
nominal Christianity alone prevails, actions are com- 
mitted by men in the highest stations which would dis- 
grace the records of the Dark Ages. 

I 



194 ARMENIA. 



CHAPTER XV. 

Ecclesiastical History. — Supposed Letter of Abgarus, King ofEdessa, 
to our Savior, and the Answer. — Promulgation and Establishment 
of Christianity. — Labors of Mesrob Maschdots. — Separation of the 
Armenian Church from that of Constantinople. — Hierarchy and re- 
ligious Establishments. — Superstition of the Lower Classes. — Sac- 
erdotal Vestments. — The Holy Books. — Romish Branch of the 
Church. — Labors of Mechitar. — His Establishment near Venice. — 
Diffusion of the Scriptures. 

The ruins of Ani to this day attest the magnificence 
and antiquity of former dynasties which long since 
reigned and passed away in the highlands of Armenia. 
In the time of Cyrus, according to Moses of Chorene, 
the historian of that country in the sixteenth century, 
Grreek statues of Jupiter, Artemis (Diana), Minerva, 
HephaBstion, and Yenus, were brought to Ani and 
placed in the citadel of that town. Here the treasures 
and the sepulchres of the ancient kings were preserved 
in a fortress deemed by them impregnable. I will not 
pause to disentangle the records of Armenia before the 
time of our Savior, for even during the life of our Lord 
the annals of Armenia become remarkably interesting 
as connected with his holy faith, and the rise and prog- 
ress of Christianity in the countries immediately ad- 
joining the sacred soil of Palestine. Abgarus, king of 
Edessa, and sovereign of great part of Armenia, with 
the adjoining countries, is said by Eusebius, bishop of 
Csesarea, the early historian of the Church, who flour- 
ished in the fourth century, to have written a letter to 



LEGEND OF ABGARUS. ^95 



our Savior, requesting him to repair to his court and 
to cure him of a disease under which he labored. The 
following is a translation of the letter which Abgarus 
is said to have written to our Lord : 

"Abgarus, King of Edessa, to Jesus the good Sav- 
ior, who appeareth at Jerusalem, greeting : 

" I have been informed concerning thee and thy 
cures, which are performed without the use of medi- 
cines or of herbs. 

" For it is reported that thou dost cause the blind to 
see, the lame to walk, that thou dost cleanse the lep- 
ers, and dost cast out unclean spirits and devils, and 
dost restore to health those who have been long dis- 
eased, and also that thou dost raise the dead. 

"All which when I heard I was persuaded of one 
of these two things : 

" Either that thou art Grod himself descended from 
heaven ; 

" Or that thou art the Son of Grod. 

" On this account, therefore, I have written unto 
thee, earnestly desiring that thou wouldst trouble thy- 
self to take a journey hither, and that thou wilt also 
cure me of the disease under which I suffer. 

" For I fear that the Jews hold thee in derision, and 
intend to do thee harm. 

" My city is indeed small, but it is sufficient to con- 
tain us both." 

In the history of Moses of Chorene, this letter begins 
with the words "Abgar, the son of Archam," but the 
substance of it is the same as the above, which is taken 
from the pages of Eusebius, who lived a century ear- 
lier than Moses of Chorene. This author ascribes the 



19(3 ARMENIA. 



answer to St. Thomas the Apostle, who was deputed 
to write an answer to the above in these words : 

"Happy art thou, Abgarus, forasmuch as thou 
hast believed in me whom thou hast not seen. 

" For it is written concerning me, that those who 
have seen me have not believed on me, that those who 
have not seen me might believe and live. 

"As to that part of thine epistle which relates to 
my visiting thee, I must inform thee that I must ful- 
fill the ends of my mission in this land, and after that 
be received up again unto Him that sent me ; but after 
my ascension I will send one of my disciples, who will 
cure thy disease, and give life unto thee and all that 
are with thee." 

These two letters are generally considered to be for- 
geries, although they are mentioned by some of the 
earliest historians of the Church. 

Some years ago I was informed, while at Alexan- 
dria, that a papyrus had been discovered in Upper 
Egypt, in an ancient tomb ; it was inclosed in a coarse 
earthenware vase, and it contained the letter from Ab- 
garus to our Savior, written either in Coptic or uncial 
Grreek characters. The answer of St. Thomas was 
said not to be with it. I was told that the manuscript 
afterward came into the possession of the King of Hol- 
land, but I have no means at present of ascertaining 
the truth of the story, or the antiquity of the papyrus 
of which it forms the subject. 

The seeds of the Christian faith were sown in Ar- 
menia by the apostles St. Bartholomew and St. Thom- 
as. According to Tertullian (adv. Judseos, c. 7), a 
Christian Church flourished there in the second cen- 



ST. GREGORY THE ILLUMINATOR. ^97 

tury. St. Blaise and other bishops suffered martyr- 
dom in different parts of Armenia during the persecu- 
tion of Diocletian, about the year 310. 

To St. Gregory, the Illuminator, is due the honor of 
having established Christianity in this region, and he 
is known by the title of the Apostle of Armenia. To- 
ward the middle of the third century, having been 
himself a convert from Paganism, he first preached 
the doctrines of our Lord among the mountains of his 
native land. He had received his education at Csesa- 
rea in Cappadocia, where he was baptized. The zeal 
with which he was animated gave irresistible force to 
his words, and the people flocked to him in great mul- 
titudes, and were baptized by his hangls. The King 
Tiridates, a violent persecutor of the Christians, touch- 
ed by the piety and virtues of St. Gregory, embraced 
the Christian faith, and, with his queen and his sister, 
received the sacrament of baptism in the 16th year of 
his reign, A.D. 274, and became the first Christian 
King of Armenia. St. .Gregory was consecrated bish- 
op by St. Leontius, Bishop of Csesarea, in Cappadocia, 
and continued his labors in propagating the faith all 
over Armenia, G-eorgia, and the nations living on the 
borders of the Caspian Sea. From this circumstance 
it became the custom for the Primate of Armenia to 
receive his consecration from the Archbishop of Csesa- 
rea, which continued to be the practice for several cen- 
turies. St. G-regory died in the year 336, in a cave to 
which he had retired, desiring to end his days as an 
anchorite, according to a custom much observed in the 
fourth century. 

In those disturbed and unsettled times, the religion 



198 



ARMENIA. 



of our Savior alternately rose and prospered, or was 
oppressed by the persecutions of various governors un- 
der the Emperors of Rome. Numerous heresies dis- 
tracted the minds of the priesthood, and confused the 
doctrines of the Armenian Church. About the year 
390 rose the most celebrated man in the history of this 
country : his name was Mesrob Maschdots. This per- 
sonage was born in the town of Hatsegatz-Avan, in the 
province of Daron : he had been secretary to the Patri- 
arch Narses, and to the Prince Varastad, who was de- 
throned by the Romans in the year 382. In the year 
390, in conjunction with the Armenian Patriarch Sa- 
hag, he occupied himself in the extinction of the idol- 
atry which still prevailed, and was the first person who 
arranged the forms of the Armenian liturgy. Before 
this time the Armenian language had no written char- 
acter ; the inhabitants of the eastern districts used the 
Persian alphabet, while those of the west wrote in the 
Syriac character. Mesrob either restored the ancient 
Armenian letters according to the historian Moses of 
Chorene, who gives a long miraculous account of the 
event, or he invented an entirely new alphabet — a sol- 
itary instance, I believe, of such an undertaking hav- 
ing been accomplished by one man. The present Ar- 
menian letters were adopted by the commands of Bah- 
rain Schahpoor over the whole of that country in the 
year 406. The first complete version of the Bible was 
now arranged and promulgated by Mesrob, and writ- 
ten on parchment in his new characters; numerous 
copies of it were distributed to the churches and mon- 
asteries of Armenia, and the important circumstance 
of their being now able to read the Holy Scriptures in 



THE CHURCH AND HIERARCHY. ^99 

their own language tended to preserve their faith, and 
to unite them as a nation during the continual troubles 
and adversities which they have suffered ever since. 
This great benefactor to his country died in the year 
441. 

The Armenian hierarchy had till now been a branch 
of the Greek Church, but, unable to read their liturgy, 
troubled with diversities of opinion, and oppressed first 
by one neighboring tyrant and then by another, this 
helpless nation finally settled down into the heresy of 
Eutyches, and, under the guidance of their patriarch, 
separated themselves from the Church of Constanti- 
nople. They believe that the body of our Savior was 
created, or else existed without creation, a divine and 
incorruptible substance, not subject to the infirmities 
of the flesh. This schism took place about the year 
535. 

The Armenian era commences in the year 552, from 
which epoch their manuscripts and calendar are dated. 
The custom continues to the present day. By the 
council of Tibena in 554, they were confirmed in their 
persistence in the Eutychian heresy. The council of 
Trullo, 692, and the council of Jerusalem, 1143, con- 
demned the errors of the Armenians. In the four- 
teenth century, Pope John XXII. sent a Dominican 
friar, called Bartholomew the Little, into that distant 
region, with several colleagues, to preach the doctrines 
of the Church of Home. Bartholomew was conse- 
crated bishop (of Nakchevan ?), and since that time the 
archbishop of that province has, with all his depend- 
encies, continued a member of the Roman Church. 
The thunders of the Lateran have often since been di- 



200 ARMENIA. 



rected against the perseverance of these distant here- 
tics, but they have been of no avail. 

The Patriarch of Armenia resides at Etchmiazin. 
He is styled Catholicos, and holds under his sway for- 
ty-seven archbishops, of whom the greater part are tit- 
ular, having no jurisdiction or dignity beyond their ti- 
tles ; many of these reside in the monastery, and form 
a sort of court around their spiritual lord the Patriarch. 
They seem to hold the same position as the Monsign- 
ores of the court of Rome. Above the titular and act- 
ual archbishops are three Patriarchs, whose seats are 
at Jerusalem, Constantinople, and Diarbekir. The 
number of bishops and episcopal sees is very consider- 
able, but I have not been able to enumerate them. 
The monasteries are also very numerous, and are scat- 
tered all over the mountains of Armenia, the islands 
of Lake Yan, and other places in Persia, Georgia, and 
Turkey. 

The ancient monasteries of their own land are of a 
peculiar construction, remarkable for the diminutive 
proportions of the churches and the small size of the 
monastic buildings, as well as their massive strength 
and the great squared stones of which they are built. 
They are little fortresses, and seem always to have 
been very poor, though some are larger and more 
wealthy, comparatively, than the generality. They 
have been erected to resist the incursions of the Sara- 
cens, Knights Templars, Koords, Turks, and Persians, 
who, from time to time, overran this abject principal- 
ity. Their massive strength alone has saved them 
from being pulled down and utterly destroyed; the 
time necessary for such an operation could not be 



IGNORANCE AND SUPERSTITION. gQl 

spared during the inroad of a chappow, or plundering 
expedition. Nothing worth stealing remains in the 
various monasteries which I have visited. A few dirty 
and imperfect church-books, some faded vestments and 
poor furniture for the altar, and the cells of three or 
four peasant-monks, were all the wealth that they dis- 
played. Very few appear to have contained a library 
— none that I have seen. Their manuscripts were 
written in former days at Edessa, Etchmiazin (which 
is a more extensive fabric), Teflis, Ooroomia, Tabriz, and 
other cities, and not usually in these outposts among 
the mountains. The little monastery of Kuzzul Vank 
possesses one ancient manuscript of the Holy Scrip- 
tures, written in the year, as far as I can remember, 
422, which, if it refers to the Armenian era, would be 
974 ; it is written in uncial letters, on vellum, in a 
small, thick quarto form. 

Ignorance and superstition contend for the mastery 
among the lower classes of Armenia, whose religion 
shows that tendency to sink into a kind of idolatry 
which is common among other branches of the Church 
of Christ in warmer climates. The following anecdote 
will explain my meaning in advancing such a charge. 
One of my servants had a bad toothache ; he was a 
Roman Catholic of Smyrna ; he made a vow to pre- 
sent an offering to the shrine of St. George at Smyrna 
if his toothache was cured by the mediation of that 
saint, but the pain still continued. A friend of his at 
Erzeroom advised him to vow a silver mouth to St. 
George of Erzeroom ; " for," he said, " St. George of 
Smyrna is a Roman saint, and, of course, he can have 
no authority here ; but our St. George is an Armenian, 

12 



202 ARMENIA. 



and he will hear your prayer." The advice was taken i 
a silver mouth was vowed to St. George of Erzeroom, 
and the toothache ceased immediately, the servant 
firmly "believing that he had been cured hy this saint, 
who, he considered, was another person, and not the 
same as St. Greorge of Smyrna, and that his picture 
here was more powerful in working miracles than the 
others. In the same manner, the pictures or images 
of Our Lady of Loretto, Gruadaloupe, or del Pilar are 
believed to be endowed with peculiar powers, and are, 
in fact, worshiped for their own merits, and not for 
what they represent. 

A curious episode in the history of Armenia took 
place in the time of Shah Abbas the Great, who estab- 
lished a colony of the natives of that province at Julfa, 
a village near Isfahaun. He gave them many privi- 
leges and immunities, which a remnant of their de- 
scendants enjoy still. The forms and ceremonies of 
their worship resemble those of the Greek Church, from 
which they are derived. Their vestments are the same, 
or nearly so : and here I will remark that the sacred 
vestures of the Christian Church are the same, with 
very insignificant modifications, among every denom- 
ination of Christians in the world ; that they have al- 
ways been the same, and never were otherwise in any 
country, from the remotest times when we have any 
written accounts of them, or any mosaics, sculptures, 
or pictures to explain their forms. They are no more 
a Popish invention, or have any thing more to do with 
the Roman Church, than any other usage which is 
common to all denominations of Christians. They are, 
and always have been, of general and universal — that 



PARISH PRIE ST S. — DOCTRINE. 203 

is, of catholic — use ; they have never 'been used for 
many centuries for ornament or dress by the laity, 
having been considered as set apart to be used only by 
priests in the church during the celebration of the wor- 
ship of Almighty God. These ancient vestures have 
been worn by the bishops, priests, and deacons of that, 
in common with the hierarchy of every other Church. 
In England they have fallen into disuse by neglect; 
King Charles I. presented some vestments to the Cathe- 
dral of Durham long after the Reformation, and they 
continued in use there almost in the memory of man. 

The parish priests of the Armenian religion are, I 
believe, permitted, if not obliged, to marry, as is the 
case in the Grreek and Russian Churches ; but they 
can not, so long as their wife survives, be promoted to 
any of the higher orders of the hierarchy. Bishops, 
archbishops, and patriarchs are elected out of the mo- 
nastic bodies who take the vows of celibacy ; their fasts 
are long and rigorous, their food simple, and their style 
of life severe ; their time is almost entirely taken up 
with the services of religion, and, as a general rule, 
their ignorance is extreme. 

In their doctrine of the Holy Trinity, they believe 
that the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father alone ; 
that Christ descended into hell, from whence he re- 
prieved the souls of sinners till the day of judgment ; 
that the souls of the righteous will not be admitted to 
the beatific vision till after the resurrection, notwith- 
standing which they invoke them in their prayers. 
They make use of pictures in their churches, but not 
of images ; they use confession to the priests, and ad- 
minister the Eucharist in both kinds. 



204 ARMENIA. 



In baptism they plunge the child three times in 
water, apply the chrism with consecrated oil prepared 
only by the Patriarch. They also touch the child's 
lips with the Eucharist, which consists of unleavened 
bread sopped in wine. 

The Holy Scriptures contain more books than those 
of the Western Churches. In the Old Testament, after 
the Book of Grenesis, occurs The Testament of the 
Twelve Patriarchs, the Sons of Jacob ; then The His- 
tory of Joseph and of his wife Asenath ; The Book of 
Jesus the Son of Sirach. After these the order of the 
scriptural books succeeds as with us. In the New 
Testament, after St. Paul's Second Epistle to the Co- 
rinthians, we find the Epistle of the Corinthians to St. 
Paul, which is followed by St. Paul's Third Epistle to 
the Corinthians. The remainder of the New Testa- 
ment is the same as ours. 

The Testament of the Twelve Patriarchs, and the 
Book of Jesus the Son of Sirach, are well known ; but 
I am not aware that the Book of Asenath has been 
printed in any European language. This curious book 
was translated into Italian, from an ancient Armenian 
manuscript of the Bible in my possession, by an Arme- 
nian friend, and translated from the Italian into En- 
glish by myself: this I presume to be the only copy 
of the Book of Asenath in the English language. It 
is a work of considerable length, and is interesting, not 
only from the place it holds in the estimation of a nu- 
merous body of Christians, but also from the picture 
it presents of the manners and customs of Egypt, at 
some remote period when it was written. Several pas- 
sages in it indicate that it must have been composed 



LORD BYRON A TRANSLATOR. 205 



when what may be called the classic style of life was 
still in use. Whether it was included among the num- 
ber of the sacred books collected by Mesrob I do not 
know : in that case it would date as far back as the 
fourth century after Christ, a period prolific in apoc- 
ryphal books, several of which were forged about that 
time to support the authority of the various heresiarchs 
who promulgated their opinions in many countries of 
the East, and who, being unable to produce texts from 
the accepted books of the Sacred Scriptures which 
would prove the truth of their doctrines, invented others 
more suitable to their own purposes, and written more 
in accordance with their views. 

The Epistle from the Corinthians to St. Paul, and 
the answer from the great apostle, is of a higher class, 
and bears much resemblance to his other Epistles. It 
has been published among Lord Byron's works. He 
took a few lessons in Armenian from Father Pasquale 
Aucher, a monk of the monastery of St. Lazarus, at 
Venice, a man of extraordinary learning, who speaks 
most of the European languages, as well as Turkish. 
Armenian, and other Oriental tongues. He translated 
these Epistles into English, with the assistance of Lord 

Byron. 

The Roman Catholic branch of the Armenian Church 
has done much more for literature and civilization than 
the original body. Few Catholics are found in Arme- 
nia itself, excepting at Erzeroom and other cities, 
where a remnant remain, while at Constantinople a 
great number of the higher and wealthier Armenians 
give their adherence to that creed. Their minds are 
more enlarged, they are less Oriental in their ideas, be- 



206 ARMENIA. 



ing usually considered as half Franks by their more 
Eastern brethren. Their churches bear a great resem- 
blance to those of other Catholics, but they retain their 
own language in their ritual, with many of the forms 
and ceremonies of the Oriental Church. The Arme- 
nian Patriarch, with his long beard, and crown instead 
of a mitre, is one of the picturesque figures to whom 
attention is drawn in the ceremonies of the Holy Week 
at Rome, where there is a college for the education of 
priests of their nation. They have another college at 
Constantinople, and several handsome churches ; but 
the most important establishment of this branch of 
their religion is that of the convent or monastery on 
the island of St. Lazarus, near Venice. 

This society, as they themselves call it, was founded 
by Mechitar, an Armenian, who was born at Sebaste, 
in Lesser Armenia, in 1676. He received holy orders 
from the Bishop Ananias, superior of the convent of 
the Holy Cross, near Sebaste. He afterward studied 
in the convent of Passen, near Erzeroom, and at an- 
other on the island on Lake Van. His wish was to 
remain in the great monastery of Etchmiazin, to which 
place he traveled, but, finding no opportunities of study 
at the seat of the Patriarch, he proceeded to Constanti- 
nople, where he afterward founded a small society, of 
a monastic kind, at Pera, in the year 1700. 

In the year 1708 he established a church and mo- 
nastic society at Modon in the Morea, then under the 
government of Venice ; but the Turks having taken 
that place, his companions were made prisoners and 
sold for slaves. He, with some others, escaped to Ven- 
ice, where he received a grant, in the year 1717, from 



MONASTERY OF ST. LAZARO. 2Q7 

the Signory, of a small deserted island in the Lagunes, 
originally the property of the Benedictine order, who 
established a hospital for lepers there in 1180. In 
this island he set up a printing-press about the year 
1730, for the production of Armenian religious books ; 
and he had the satisfaction of seeing his convent in- 
crease in comfort, wealth, and respectability before his 
death, which took place on the 27th of April, 1749. 

So high was the character of this establishment for 
usefulness and good conduct, that in 1810, when oth- 
er monastic establishments were suppressed at Venice, 
the abbot of St. Lazaro received a peculiar decree, 
granting him and his community all the privileges of 
their former independence. So high also has been the 
character of this society since that time, that it has 
been usual for the Pope to confer upon each new abbot 
the title and dignity of Archbishop, although he has no 
province or bishops under him. The service they have 
rendered to their countrymen is very great : they have 
at present five printing-presses, from whence every 
year proceed numerous volumes of religious and his- 
torical character, as well as school-books, and a news- 
paper in the Armenian language. These are mostly 
sold at Constantinople, and among the scattered soci- 
eties of their nation. The funds produced from this 
source enable them to establish a considerable school 
or college at Venice, and to send literary missionaries, 
as they may be called, to collect manuscripts and his- 
torical notices among the barren mountains of Arme- 
nia. Of these they make good use, compiling, from 
imperfect and mutilated fragments, authentic histories 
of their country ; printing the almost hitherto lost and 



208 



ARMENIA. 



unknown works of ancient Armenian authors, and dis- 
tributing • copies of the Holy Scriptures among their 
brethren in the wasted and benighted land of their fa- 
thers. 

They printed the Armenian Bible in the year 1805 ; 
and, entirely by their energy, the small spark which 
alone glimmered in the darkness of Armenian igno- 
rance in the East has gradually increased its light into 
a feeble ray, which now, seen faintly through the mist, 
draws every now and then the attention of some one 
endowed by nature with more intelligence than the 
rest, and incites him to inquire into those truths the 
rumors of whose existence had only reached him hith- 
erto. Slowly enough, but we trust surely, the good 
work prospers : when curiosity and interest are awak- 
ened, the mind turns naturally to the sources from 
which information may be gained. The Holy Grospels, 
the New Testament, and, in some places, the whole 
Bible, may now be procured at a comparatively trifling 
expense ; the leaven, once introduced, sooner or later 
will leaven the whole mass ; truth and common sense 
will dissipate the clouds which ignorance and supersti- 
tion have gathered over the face of the land, and the 
light of true religion will arise to set no more. 



DIVISIONS OF THE COUNTRY. 209 



CHAPTER XVI. 

Modern division of Armenia. — Population. — Manners and Customs of 
the Christians. — Superiority of the Mohammedans. 

The country which was called Armenia in ancient 
times is now divided into two portions ; the smaller of 
the two belongs to Persia, but the larger part is con- 
tained in the Turkish province or pashalik of Erzeroom. 
It does not possess any communication with the sea, 
and is a wild and mountainous district. Although not 
of any high importance for mercantile productions, it 
has continually been an object of jealousy to the neigh- 
boring empires of Persia and Byzantium — or, in our 
time, Persia and Turkey — from the high road between 
those empires necessarily passing through it ; the pow- 
er of cutting off supplies, and permitting the passage 
of caravans laden with the rich productions of other 
lands, being vested in the hands of the military gov- 
ernor of Erzeroom. The number of inhabitants of this 
pashalik is estimated at 1,000,000 ; there were proba- 
bly more in earlier times. The principal cities are — 
Erzeroom, the capital, containing about 30,000 souls. 
The population of Kars is considered to be about 
20,000, Van 20,000, Moosh and Beyboort about 8000 
each. The Turkish governor of the pashalik has gen- 
erally an armed force of 25,000 regular soldiers ; but 
it would be easy for him, with sufficient funds, to raise 
a more considerable force of irregular cavalry, and in- 
fantry armed with rifles, the use of which weapon is 



210 ARMENIA. 



well understood by the hardy mountaineers and hunt- 
ers, whose manners in some respects resemble those of 
the Tyrolese. The greater half of the population are 
Mohammedan Turks or Osmanlis, followers of Osman. 
The word Turk is never used in this country, and is 
more generally applied to the Turkomans and some of 
the tribes on the Persian border, who are of Calmuc or 
Tartar origin, and a completely different sort of people 
from those whom we call Turks. The Christian pop- 
ulation consists of a small number of Grreeks, Nestori- 
ans, and Roman Catholics, the greater part being de- 
scendants of the ancient possessors of the soil, and 
professing the Christianity of the Armenian Church, 
which I have attempted to describe above. Their 
manners and customs are the same as those of the 
Turks, whom they copy in dress and in their general 
way of living ; so much is this the case, that it is fre- 
quently difficult to distinguish the Turkish from the 
Armenian family, both in Armenia and at Constanti- 
nople; only the Armenian is the inferior in all re- 
spects ; he would be called in China a second-chop 
Turk. He is more quick and restless in his motions, 
and wants the dignity and straightforward bearing of 
the Osmanli. More than 100,000 Armenians are set- 
tled at Constantinople. These are not so ignorant, and 
are, even in appearance, different from those of their 
original country, who are a heavy and loutish race, 
while the citizens are thin, sharp, active in money- 
making arts, and remarkable for their acuteness in 
mercantile transactions. Each Turkish village elects 
its cadi, a sort of mayor ; an Armenian Christian vil- 
lage elects its elder, who is called the Ak Sakal, or 



CUSTOMS. 221 



White Beard ; lie is the responsible person in all trans- 
actions with government, and sometimes holds an ar- 
duous post. 

The women live in a harem, like the Turkish wom- 
en, separate from the men. The mistress of the house 
superintends the kitchen, the making of preserves, and 
salting winter stores ; they wear the yashmak, or Turk- 
ish veil, at Constantinople, where the Armenian ladies 
are celebrated for their beauty, and their fine eyes, 
and black, arched eyebrows. In Armenia, the women, 
when they go out, wrap themselves up in a large piece 
of bunting, the same kind of stuff that is used in Eu- 
rope for flags ; being of wool, it takes a fine color in 
dyeing. The ample wrappers of the women are some- 
times of a bright scarlet, sometimes a "brilliant white 
or blue. The effect of this veil is much more pleasing 
than those of Constantinople or Egypt. The Armeni- 
ans are not bad cooks : some of their dishes are excel- 
lent ; one of mutton stewed with quinces leaves a very 
favorable impression on the recollection of the hungry 
traveler. The country people live underground in the 
peculiar houses which I have described ; they are an 
agricultural peasantry, tilling the ground, and not pos- 
sessing large herds of sheep or cattle, like the Turk- 
omans, Koords, or Arabs; they are a heavy-looking 
race, but are hardy and active, and inured from youth 
to exercise and endurance, but even in these respects 
they are excelled by the Mohammedan mountaineers. 

The superiority of the Mohammedan over the Chris- 
tian can not fail to strike the mind of an intelligent 
person who has lived among these races, as the fact is 
evident throughout the Turkish empire. This arises 



212 ARMENIA. 



partly from the oppression which the Turkish rulers in 
the provinces have exercised for centuries over their 
Christian subjects : this is probably the chief reason ; 
but the Turk obeys the dictates of his religion, the Chris- 
tian does not ; the Turk does not drink, the Christian 
gets drunk ; the Turk is honest, the Turkish peasant is 
a pattern of quiet, good-humored honesty ; the Chris- 
tian is a liar and a cheat ; his religion is so overgrown 
with the rank weeds of superstition that it no longer 
serves to guide his mind in the right way. It would 
be a work of great difficulty to disentangle the pure 
faith preached by the Apostles from the mass of absurd- 
ities and strange notions with which Christianity is 
encumbered, in the belief of the villagers in out-of-the- 
way places, among the various sects of Christians in 
the dominions of the Sultan. This seems to have been 
the case for many centuries, and it has produced its 
effect in lowering the standard of morality, and injur- 
ing the general character of those nations who are sub- 
jects of Turkey and not of the Mohammedan religion. 
For, of two evils, it is better to follow the doctrines of 
a false religion than to neglect the precepts of the true 
faith. 



ARMENIAN MANUSCRIPTS. 213 



CHAPTER, XVII. 

Armenian Manuscripts. — Manuscripts at Etchmiazin. — Comparative 
Value of Manuscripts. — Uncial Writing. — Monastic Libraries. — Col- 
lections in Europe. — The St. Lazaro Library. 

Armenian manuscripts are of extreme rarity, not 
only in Europe, but in Armenia itself, at Constantino- 
ple, or any other place. The unsettled state in which 
that distracted province has from time immemorial 
been sunk, has prevented the development of the peace- 
ful arts, and few of the monastic establishments of that 
country had wealth, or leisure, or convenience to copy 
and illuminate their books. The few fine manuscripts 
which I have met with seem to have been written for 
some Armenian princes, and were the works of scribes 
supported by exalted personages, who wrote under the 
shadow of their protection in the metropolitan cities, 
or in the patriarchal monastery of Etchmiazin. I was 
prevented by illness when in the neighborhood from 
visiting Etchmiazin, but there are preserved (or rather 
neglected) there, I have been given to understand, 
more than 2000 ancient manuscripts. These are com- 
pletely unknown, unless within these few years they 
have been examined by any Russian antiquarian ; no 
other traveler has been there who was competent to 
overlook a dusty library, so as to give any idea, not of 
what there is, but even what it may be likely to con- 
tain. This, as my bibliographical friends are well 
aware, is a peculiar art or mystery depending more on 



214 



ARMENIA. 



a general knowledge of the first aspect of an old book 
than a capacity to appreciate its contents. A hook 
written on vellum implies a certain antiquity immedi- 
ately recognizable by the initiated. If it does not ap- 
pear to be ancient, it is then more than probable that 
it contains the works of some author of more than or- 
dinary consideration, to have made it worth while to 
go to the expense and labor of a careful scribe and a 
material difficult in those days to procure. An illu- 
minated manuscript on vellum, if not a prayer-book, 
secures additional attention ; independent of its value 
as a work of art, it must be of some consequence to 
have made it worth illuminating. A large manuscript, 
as a general rule, is worth more than a little one, for 
the same evident reason that its contents were consid- 
ered at the time when it was written to have been of 
some importance, and deserving of more labor, time, 
and care, than if it was just written out cheaply by a 
common scribe. Uncial writing — that is, a book writ- 
ten in capital letters— is much more ancient than one 
written in a cursive hand, and the most ancient vol- 
umes were generally large square quartos. It is curi- 
ous that this should be the case in almost all nations 
and languages surrounding the Mediterranean, though 
their customs may be so different in other respects. 
Manuscripts on paper, again, are sometimes of remark- 
able interest, from their containing the works of authors 
then considered trivial and inferior, but now of much 
more value than the more ponderous tomes of the Mid- 
dle Ages. 

The majority of the volumes in an ancient monastic 
library are worn-out, imperfect church-books, which 



MANUSCRIPTS. 215 

have been cast aside from time to time, and committed 
to the care of the mice and spiders, who alone frequent 
the shelves or the floor of that dusty lumber-room. It 
is uncommon to find a manuscript in more than one 
volume, unless it may be the works of St. Chrysostom, 
or another of the Fathers of the Church. In this case 
the volumes are hardly ever found together, and a com- 
plete set of three or four volumes is beyond hoping 
for, carelessness and neglect having been for centuries 
the librarians of the monastery. These and other cir- 
cumstances combine to make a cursory examination 
of one of these original hoards of by-gone literature a 
task for which the learned student of some abstruse 
science, or dead or dying language, is totally incompe- 
tent. The translator of an almost forgotten tongue, 
the laborious compiler of unpublished history, requires 
that the musty chronicles, the splendid illuminated vol- 
umes bound in gold and velvet, the crabbed, ill- written 
works of antique lore, should be laid upon the table 
before him, so that, in the undisturbed silence of his 
study, surrounded with lexicons and modern books of 
reference, he may bit by bit extract the pith, and win- 
now off the chaff, from the venerable manuscripts of 
distant lands and other times. The bibliographical 
traveler, who is to provide these precious relics for his 
careful use, who is to drag them from their dark re- 
cesses, where they have been lying undisturbed 500 or 
1000 years, has an entirely different task to fulfill. 
The professor would require months to look over each 
book one by one, to brush away the cobwebs, to ascer- 
tain by difficult and uncertain passages what the sub- 
ject of those manuscripts might be which had lost 



216 ARMENIA. 



many pages at the beginning and end, and to satisfy 
himself at last that it was worthless — a conclusion to 
which another would arrive at the first glance. This 
power of immediately appreciating the value of ancient 
manuscripts in the manner above mentioned will be 
understood by those who are aware that such is the 
usual jealousy of the ignorant monks for that which 
they can neither use nor understand themselves, that 
it hardly ever happens that a stranger is permitted to 
take more than a general survey of the worm-eaten 
and dusty mass which lies in heaps upon the floor, or 
is piled in the corners of the room which they call their 
library, but which they probably have never entered 
on any other occasion. 

Such as I have described are the libraries at Etch- 
miazin, the monastery on Lake Van, those near Ooroo- 
mia, and the few places where more than the church- 
books are still remaining. 

In England, the Bodleian Library contains about 
twenty volumes of Armenian manuscripts ; the British 
Museum not so many, I believe; the Royal Library 
at Paris has about 200, which were collected by the 
emissaries of Louis XIV. Some of these are of consid- 
erable antiquity and beauty. In private collections 
very few are to be found. In my library there are 
about a dozen, of which two are the most splendid that 
I have met with in the East, or in any country. I 
possess also a number of loose leaves of the highest 
antiquity, which are so far curious that they display 
the progress of the art of writing almost since the days 
of Mesrob to the present time. But, with the excep- 
tion of the unknown treasures of Etchmiazin, the con- 



MANUSCRIPTS. 217 

vent of St. Lazaro at Venice not only preserves, but 
makes good use of, the finest collection of Armenian 
manuscripts extant. Their number is about 1200, of 
which 100 are on vellum ; the rest are written partly 
on ancient paper made from cotton, and partly on paper 
such as we use at present. Three volumes on Charta 
Bombycina are among the most ancient that I have 
met with that are written on that material : one con- 
tains commentaries on the Psalms and the Epistles, by 
Ephraim Syrius and St. Chrysostom, written in the 
year of the Armenian era 448, Anno Domini 999 ; the 
second is a small book of prayer, containing the date 
of A. D. 1178 ; the third is the romance of Alexander 
the Great : this curious volume is illustrated with nu- 
merous drawings, richly gilt and colored ; it was writ- 
ten in the thirteenth century. 

They have three copies of the Gospels, and one Rit- 
ual written in uncial letters (one of these ancient cop- 
ies of the Gospels is illuminated with several large 
miniatures in a style resembling Greek art), as well 
as several others of inferior interest. 

The library also possesses six or seven richly illu- 
minated copies of the Scriptures, some splendid books of 
prayer, and a great number of other Armenian manu- 
scripts, containing records of the history or the works 
of authors who were natives of that country, from 
which have been printed many volumes whose pages 
illustrate manners and events which were completely 
forgotten before the monks of St. Lazaro rescued them 
from oblivion. 

K 



218 ARMENIA. 



CHAPTER XVIII. 

General History of Armenia. — Former Sovereigns. — Tiridates I. re- 
ceives his Crown from Nero. — Conquest of the Country by the Per- 
sians and by the Arabs. — List of modern Kings. — Misfortunes of 
Leo V. : his Death at Paris. 

The general history of Armenia contains but little 
that is interesting. It presents the picture of a line 
of sovereigns who have seldom been able to support 
their own authority, and who have constantly abdi- 
cated, embraced monastic vows, or been driven from 
the throne by rebellions of their subjects, and invasions 
of neighboring conquerors more talented and more 
powerful than themselves. Many of the Armenian 
kings seem to have lived almost on the charity of oth- 
er states; the lines of their dynasties have been so 
often interrupted, and the changes from kings to gov- 
ernors, dukes, and counts have been so frequent, that 
their history is most intricate ; and, from the bound- 
aries of the so-called kingdom of Armenia having nev- 
er been the same for many years together, it is diffi- 
cult to understand from the scattered notices which 
history has transmitted to us who should be consider- 
ed as the head of the state, or which of the many vas- 
sal princes, under the great empires of the East, has 
the better claim to the title of sovereign of this ancient 
kingdom. 

At the time of our Savior, Abgarus, king of Edessa, 
seems to have exercised sovereignty over great part of 



FORMER SOVEREIGNS. 219 

Armenia, on the southern and western sides. Tirida- 
tes I. is the first person styling himself King of Arme- 
nia after this period. He conquered the country from 
Rhadamistus, by the assistance of his brother Vologe- 
ses, King of Parthia. The Romans, however, who did 
not approve of the erection of an independent kingdom 
in those regions, sent an army against Tiridates, com- 
manded by Corbulo, who forced Tiridates to abdicate, 
on condition of his proceeding to Rome to receive his 
crown from the hands of the Emperor Nero. He was 
received with the highest honors by the Roman em- 
peror, who advanced as far as Naples to meet him. 
Tiridates won his good graces by the artful manner in 
which he nattered Nero on his skill in chiving a char- 
iot. They became great friends : the Armenian king 
received large sums of money from the emperor, with 
which he returned to his own country, and repaired his 
dismantled fortresses. He changed the name of his 
capital from Artaxarte to Neronia, in compliment to 
his imperial protector, and died in the year 75 A.D., 
after a reign of eleven years. 

To him succeeded several princes who were vassals 
to the Roman empire, but whose actions do not seem 
to offer any thing of interest. Tiridates II had re- 
ceived his education at Rome, and, assisted by the em- 
peror, he was placed upon the throne of Armenia, by 
the general consent of the nobles of his country, in 259. 
He, as I have mentioned in the ecclesiastical sketch 
of this history, embraced Christianity, and died in the 
year 314. Other unimportant princes succeeded, among 
whom John Nustaron governed Armenia, under the 
Emperor Maurice. The Persians conquered the coun- 



220 ARMENIA. 



try in the reign of the Emperor Phocas, but it was 
soon retaken by Heraclius. Pasagnates revolted 
against the Emperor Constantine II., who defeated 
him, and placed Sabarius, a Persian, on the throne, 
who also rebelled, and was beat in the year 658. . Jus- 
tinian II. concluded a treaty with the Caliph Abdol- 
malek, by which the two sovereigns divided between 
them the revenues of Armenia, Iberia, and Cyprus ; 
and the same emperor, Justinian II., placed Sablas on 
the Armenian throne. This prince, being established 
in this mountainous kingdom, organized an army, and, 
having attempted to extricate his country from the 
power of the Caliph, was defeated by him in 687, and 
the Arabs became masters of Armenia. The Empe- 
ror Constantine Copronymus retook this province, and 
established Paulus as viceroy. Paulus was conquer- 
ed by the forces of the Caliph, but he afterward re-es- 
tablished himself upon the throne. 

After his reign, Armenia was governed by several 
dukes and counts, some of whom ruled over a larger, 
and some over a smaller, portion of the country. Dur- 
ing this period constant battles and disturbances took 
place between the adherents of the caliphs and the 
Christian emperors in this distracted province. The 
Patriarch of Constantinople made every endeavor to 
break down the religious subjection of the Armenians 
to their heretical Patriarch. But the history of the 
numerous princes who succeeded each other, after pe- 
riods of short and doubtful power, on the throne of 
parts only of Armenia, is so complicated and so doubt- 
ful, that I shall not attempt to speak of them, and pro- 
ceed to the time of the first generally acknowledged 



MODERN KINGS. 221 

king of modern times. The name of this monarch 
was 

Philaretes Branchance. After resisting the forces 
of the Emperor Michael Ducas, he submitted to his 
successor, Mcephorus Botoniates, by whom he was 
supported through the rest of his reign. He flourish- 
ed about the year 1080. 

Constantine was succeeded by his brother 

Taphroc, or Taphnuz. Under these two sovereigns 
appear numerous petty princes, who were feudatories 
to the Kins* 

Leo, who was long a prisoner under the Turks, lived 
in 1131. 

Theodorus, or Thoros, after a stormy' reign, died in 
1170. 

Thomas, son of the sister of Thoros. 

Milo, brother of Thoros. Under this reign the 
power of the Knights Templars was formidable. They 
had acquired large possessions in Armenia ; and their 
numerous preceptories were in fact fortified castles, 
from which they defied the power of their suzerain. 
Milo waged war with the Templars, and succeeded in 
banishing many of their followers from his dominions. 
He died in 1180. 

Rupinus was made prisoner by Bohemond, Prince 
of Antioch. He died in 1189. 

Leo I., or Livon, concluded a treaty, by which he 
freed Armenia from the tribute which it had paid to 
the Prince of Antioch, instead of which he voluntarily 
paid homage to the Pope Celestinus III. He lived in 
perpetual war with the formidable body of Knights 
Templars, with various success, and died in 1219. 



222 ARMENIA. 



Isabel, daughter of Leo. In the reign of this prin- 
cess the kingdom of Armenia became tributary to the 
Turkish Sultans of Iconium. 

Alton, or Otho, sent embassadors to St. Louis, King 
of France, in the island of Cyprus. He made a visit 
to Mangou, Khan of Tartary, whom he converted to 
Christianity, and in alliance with whom, assisted by 
his brother, Houlagou Khan, he made war against the 
Mohammedans, and, having destroyed the castles of 
the Assassins, penetrated into the dominions of the Sul- 
tan of Aleppo, their further progress being stopped by 
the death of Mangou Khan, which occasioned the re- 
turn of Houlagou to his own country. The Saracens 
or Mohammedans, on this change of affairs, in their 
turn overran Armenia, where they committed dreadful 
cruelties ; and Aiton, having abdicated the crown in 
1270, retired into a monastery, under the name of Ma- 
carius, where he died in the year 1272. 

Leo, the son of Aiton, mounted the throne of his fa- 
ther in 1270, and was in constant war with Bondochar, 
Sultan of Egypt, who massacred 20,000 persons in Ar- 
menia. He was excommunicated for outrages com- 
mitted upon the Patriarch of Antioch. After a reign 
of trouble and disaster, he died in 1288. 

Aiton, or Otho II, the son of Leo, with many of his 
nation, embraced the Roman faith, and demanded the 
assistance of Pope Boniface YIII. against the infi- 
dels who menaced his power. No effective assistance 
having been afforded him, he abdicated the throne, 
took the habit of a Capuchin friar, and, under the name 
of Brother John, died in the year 1294. 

Thoros, or Theodorus, despairing of success against 



MODERN KINGS. £23 



the incursions of the neighboring nations, also became 
a Capuchin friar. He died in 1296. 

Sembat, or Penibald, the brother of Aiton and Tho- 
ros, usurped the throne in the absence of his brothers ; 
he was dethroned by another brother, Constantine, and 
died in 1298. 

Constantine sent his remaining brothers to Constan- 
tinople, with a recommendation to the Emperor to take 
care of them. The year of his death is uncertain. 

Leo III. was murdered in the year 1307. 

GMr Ossim, with the assistance of Pope John XXII., 
made an advantageous truce or treaty with the Kings 
of Sicily and Cyprus, with whom he was at war. This 
was accomplished through the mediation of the Gen- 
oese, who at this time appear to have been the prin- 
cipal traders in Constantinople, Persia, and Armenia. 
He died in 1320. 

Leo IV. lived in continual war with the Saracens. 
This king sent embassadors to Philippe de Valois, King 
of France, to beg assistance against the incursions of the 
Saracens. He married first Constancia, daughter of 
Frederick, King of Sicily, and secondly the daughter of 
the Prince of Tarentum, niece to Robert, King of Na- 
ples. Having provoked the jealousy of his countrymen 
by promoting numerous Frenchmen to high offices of 
government, he was assassinated in the year 1344. 

After his death Guy de Lusignan was elected King 
of Armenia. He died in 1344. 

Constans, or Constantius, apparently his son, suc- 
ceeded G-uy de Lusignan, and was killed by the Sara- 
cens in 1351. He had dispatched embassadors to 
implore assistance against the infidels to the courts 



224 



ARMENIA. 



of the Pope, the King of England, and the King of 
France. 

Const antine, the next king, appears to have lived in 
continual troubles with his own subjects, as well as in 
constant alarm at the increasing inroads of the neigh- 
boring powers on both sides. The annals of Ins stormy 
reign are almost silent, and it is not known when he 
died. To such a state of misery and confusion was 
the kingdom of Armenia now reduced, that the exist- 
ence of another king, who was probably his successor, 
is only known by the witness of a rare coin, which 
bears as legend drago . rex . armen . agapi. In the 
year 1368 the nobles of Armenia elected Peter I., King 
of Cyprus, king ; but he was at Rome at that period, 
and never took possession of his precarious honor. 

The records of the Armenian sovereigns are now 
drawing to a close. About this period, Leo V., of the 
family of Lusignan, was seated on his trembling throne. 
He was famous only for his misfortunes. Menaced on 
every side, his provinces and castles, one by one, fell 
before the victorious inroads of the Turks. The Gen- 
oese alone, who, in pursuit of trade, had fortified many 
strong places in Armenia, held out gallantly against 
the common foe, and the Mohammedan invaders were 
unable to gain possession of the town of Curco, or Co- 
ry cus, in Cilicia, which was defended by the soldiers 
of the intrepid merchants. After a constant series of 
disasters and defeats, the unhappy king escaped with 
his life to the island of Cyprus, from whence he passed 
to Italy, and afterward to Castile, where he implored 
in vain for assistance from those Christian princes to 
reinstate him in the kingdom of his ancestors, which 



DEATH OF LEO V. 225 

had fallen into the power of the infidel, and which, 
from that period to the present day, has continued to 
form one of the great pashaliks, or provinces of the 
Turkish empire. From Castile he took refuge in 
France, where he was received with distinguished fa- 
vor and hospitality by King Charles V., who assigned 
for his residence the hotel of St. Ouen, near St. Denis. 
About the year 1378 Leo passed over to England, in 
the hopes of effecting peace between King Richard II. 
and the King of France, with whom he was then at 
war, and inducing the two sovereigns to embark in a 
crusade against the Turks for the recovery of the Holy 
Land, and for his own restoration to his kingdom. His 
overtures, like all his other acts, were unsuccessful ; 
but from Richard, King of England, he received mag- 
nificent presents, and a pension of 20,000 marcs, which 
munificence was imitated by the King of France in an 
annual allowance of 6000 livres. 

Leo, King of Armenia, was of small stature, but of 
intelligent expression . and well-formed features. He 
lived in great magnificence, being richer from the 
presents of the Christian monarchs than he had been 
in his own beleaguered kingdom. The last of his royal 
line, he died, leaving no successor, at Paris, in the year 
1393. His body was carried to the tomb clothed in 
royal robes of white, according to the custom of Arme- 
nia, with an open crown upon his head and a golden 
sceptre in his hand. He lay in state upon an open 
bier hung with white, and surrounded by the officers 
of his household, clothed all of them in white robes. 
He was buried by the high altar of the church of the 
Celestines, where his effigy was to be seen upon a 

K2 



226 ARMENIA. 



black marble tomb under an archway in the wall, and 
on the tomb was written 

<&2 jjtst le tres noble et tees excellent prince, 3L$on tf'e 2Lnsfs= 
nan, quint 3&ot 3Latin ttu l&ogaulme ti'&rmente, qui renfctt 
I'ame a 2iteu a ^arfa le £)$£» four Xre Wobemfoe, I'an Xre (£race 
mcccjxm. ■ . 



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